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Our Presidents 

FROM= 

WASHINGTON 



:TO: 



ROOSEVELT 



-CONTAINING- 



AN ACCOUNT OF THE BOYHOOD 
DAYS, ADVENTURES, CAREERS 
AND HOMES OF THE TWENTY- 
SIX PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES OF AMERICA ^ ^ ^ 



By CHARLES MORRIS, LL.D. 

Author of the "Child's History of the United 
States," "The Child's Story of the Nineteenth 
Century," "Our Naval Heroes," Etc., Etc., Etc. 



PROFVSELY ILLUSTRATED 

WITH BEAUTIFUL COLOR PLATES, HALF-TONES 
AND LINE DRAWINGS 



"the LtBRARV OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Combb RtcovEO 

CLAS3 <*- yXft Wo. 
COPY B. 






Entered according to Act of 
Corvgres s in the year 1903 by 
W. E. SCULL, in the office 
of the Librarian of Congress, 



at Washington, D. C. 



All Rights Reserved 




OUR PRESIDENTS. 




E honor our Presidents, and well we may. They 
have all risen to greatness through honorable 
effort. They were representative men. They 
^vxre just such men as are made from boys hav- 
ing no better, if as good, opportunities as the 
boys v/ho are living to-day. Each made for himself the story 
of his own life. Greatness was not thrust upon them, nor 
were any of them born with the promise that they should be 
the chief rulers of their land ; nor were they taught in their 
boyhood that any one had to obey them, but rather were they 
taught that they should be obedient to others. 

The men who were to become our early Presidents lived 
at a time when the colonists were throwing off the yoke of 
King George III. Others of them were boys in those exciting 
times. They early learned that a man born to be a king was 
not, for that reason, a great man. On the contrary they were 
taught that greatness was something which they had to work 
for. When they were boys, most of our Presidents had to 
start far down the ladder and climb step by step to the top, 



ii OUR PRESIDENTS 

and the stories of all of them are filled with patience, endur- 
ance, intelligence and ability which make them a hundred 
times better worth reading than the lives of most kings who 
are only great because they are born in a palace. 

It is for this reason we put before you here the stories 
of the Presidents of the United States, for we are sure if you 
read one of them you will be glad to read them all. 

Those of you who have read much in history must know 
a good deal about the way other nations are governed. Their 
rulers have many names. We call them kings and emperors 
and czars and sultans and other names, and are apt to look 
upon them as very high and mighty potentates, with their fine 
robes and gay palaces and all the show and ceremony with 
which they try to make themselves look great. But when we 
come to look at them closely we find of what little worth 
the most of them really were. 

This then is the difference between Kings and Presidents. 
Kings are born to their offices, and the crown is put on their 
heads if they have no more sense than an owl, who may look 
wise but is not. Presidents are born among the common 
people, and they must be men of very superior powers to 
carry them up to the head of the nation. The people of a 
kingdom do not pick out their rulers at all. They come by 
the chance of birth. But when the United States wants a 
ruler it goes among its seventy-five million people and selects 
the man who seems to be the best of them all. Of course, 
there are mistakes made. Our people do not always get the 
best. But they get the man they want, not the man that 
chance offers them, and are sure to get men far above the 
general run of kings. Why, if we take our twenty-five Presi- 
dents and put them beside twenty-five of the best Kings that 
history tells us about, we would have reason to feel proud. 



OUR PRESIDENTS iii 

Let US look at the character of our Presidents. There 
was Washington, the first of them all. Where in all the 
world has there ever been a greater and nobler man? We are 
all proud of him still and are glad to say that we were born 
in the land of Washington. There were John Adams and 
his son, men of the highest private virtues, patriotism, earnest- 
ness, and devotion to duty. There was Jefferson, a student 
and philosopher, with a lofty mind but with an earnest trust 
in the common people and the rights of man. There was 
Madison, whose named is identified with our noble Constitu- 
tion ; Monroe, the guardian of American independence; Jack- 
son, a fine example of strength and manliness ; Lincoln, dis- 
tinguished for his public and private virtues, his patriotism 
and magnanimity. I might go on to the end of the list and 
show how each stands above his fellow-citizens in some virtue. 

It is true we have not always chosen the best man. Mis- 
takes may be made, even when a whole nation lifts its voice. 
In choosing a President there are two things to be considered, 
the man himself, and the principles he stands for. If the 
mass of the people wish a certain policy to be carried out, 
they will vote for the man who stands for that policy, even if 
a better man stands for a different policy. In that way some 
weak men have been chosen. Then there is the worship of 
military glory. That has put some men at our head who 
made better generals than Presidents. But on the whole we 
have done very well and have good reason to be proud of 
our choice. 

This is a book of the lives of our Presidents. I do not 
think you could find anywhere more interesting lives. We 
are not talking here of boys born in palaces and fed on cream 
and cakes, some of them bowed down to as kings before 
they left their cradles ; but of boys like Abraham Lincoln, 



iv OUR PRESIDENTS 

born in a rude hut in the wilderness and studying by the aid 
of a kitchen fire and a wooden shovel ; or like James A. Gar- 
field, driving mules on a canal path to help his poor mother ; 
or of a dozen others who had to scramble along, inch by inch, 
until they showed themselves so noble and brave and sensible 
and honorable that the people of our great nation were glad 
to put them at their head. 

Talk about the romance of history ! Have we not plenty 
of it here? The story of Kings begins after they get on the 
throne. And then it is more their people's history than their 
own. But the best of the story of Presidents comes before 
they get to their high office. There is ■ where we find the 
romance of their lives. After they get to be Presidents it is 
all official work, very important, but not very interesting. But 
the way they got there is what you will like best to read 
about; how some were born in log huts and some in man- 
sions ; how some went to college and some to the little coun- 
try school ; how some ruled plantations and some chopped 
wood or drove mules ; how some fought and won in great 
wars and some rose to be famous orators and statesmen ; and 
how in the end they were chosen by the people to be Presi- 
dents of the United States. It is all very wonderful and very 
interesting and I am sure all who read this book will say the 
same. 



^?vrz^ 




\ 



Table of Contents 



GEORGE WASHINGTON / . . 17 

The Father of His Country 

JOHN ADAMS <^ 33 

The Massachusetts Patriot 

THOMAS JEFFERSON 45 

The Writer of the Declaration of Independence 

JAMES MADISON '^ 59 

The Father of the Constitution 

JAMES MONROE 7° 

"America for the Americans" 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 80 

Scholar, Diplomat, Statesman 

ANDREW JACKSON . . , 90 

" Old Hickory " 

MARTIN VAN BUREN 103 

The New York Politician 

\VILLIAM HENRY HARRISON m 

The Hero of Tippecanoe 

JOHN TYLER 123 

The Surprise President 

JAMES KNOX POLK 130 

A North Carolina Boy 

V 



vi . TABLE OF CONTENTS 

ZACHARY TAYLOR 137 

" Old Rough and Ready " 

MILLARD FILLMORE v 145 

The Second-Hand President 

FRANKLIN PIERCE 150 

The New Hampshire Man 

JAMES BUCHANAN 156 

The Man from Wheatlands 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 161 

The Great Emancipator 

ANDREW JOHNSON " - i73 

The Tailor who Became President 

ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT . i79 

America's Greatest General 

RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES '^ 190 

A President by a Small Majority 

JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 196 

The Second Martyred President 

CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR ^ .209 

The Green Mountain State President 

GROVER CLEVELAND 214 

The Veto President 

BENJAMIN HARRISON ^"f .222 

The Orator President 

WILLIAM McKINLEY 228 

The Third Martyr President 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT . .238 

The Man of a Strenuous Life 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 




THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY. 

Very many years ago, on the 
twenty-second day of February, of the 
year 1732, a little boy was born in an 
old-fashioned farm-house down in Vir- 
ginia. On this farm, or plantation, as 
it was called, tobacco was grown, in- 
stead of wheat or corn, and this was 
% ^sent to England to be sold. 

The name of the child's father was 
Augustine Washington. His mother's 
name was Mary. They gave him the 
name of George Washington, a name 
now known to everybody. 
When George was a very small boy his father died, and 
he was brought up by his mother in an old farm-house on the 
Rappahannock River, just opposite the town of Fredericksburg. 
The boy grew up to be honest, truthful, obedient, bold 
and strong. He could jump the farthest, run the fastest, climb 
the highest, wrestle the best, ride the swiftest, swim the long- 
est of all the boys he played with. They all liked him, for 
he was gentle, kind and brave ; and always told the truth. 

When a boy grows up and gets to be a great and famous 
man many stories come to be told about him, some of which 
are not true. Here is a story which is often told about Wash- 
ington, though no one knows whether it is true or not. 
2 17 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



i8 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



It is said that Mrs. Washington had a fine colt, which she 
hoped would grow into a very fast horse. But it was wild 
and had never been ridden, and the men on the plantation 
were afraid to get on its back. George was now a well-grown 
boy and a good rider, and he said that he could ride the colt. 
He did ride it, too, so the story goes. The wild creature 
did all it could to throw him off, but he kept on its back and 

rode it around the field. In 
the end the animal grew so 
violent that it burst a blood- 
vessel and fell dead. George 
was very sorry, but he went 
straight to his mother and 
told her the truth. 

She looked at him a 
moment, then she said : "I 
am sorry to lose the colt ; but 
I am very glad to have my 
son tell me of his fault.'' 

Such is the story. It may 
not be true, for young boys 
do not ride wild colts ; but it 

MARY BALL AFTERWARD THE MOTHER OF hclpS US tO kUOW what klud 
GEORGE WASHINGTON, SPINNING HER FLAX. •'• 

of a boy Washington was. 

When young Washington was sixteen years old he gave 
up going to school and became a surveyor. A surveyor is 
one who goes around measuring land, so that men can know 
just how much they own, and just where the lines run that 
divide it from other people's land. 

This work kept George out of doors most of the time, and 
made him healthy and big and strong. He went off into the 
woods and over the mountains, surveying land for the owners. 




GEORGE WASHINGTON 



19 



He was a fine-looking young fellow then. He was almost 
six feet tall, was strong and active, and could stand almost 
anything in the way of out-of-door dangers and labors. 
He had light brown hair, blue eyes and a frank face, and he 
had such a firm and friendly way about him, although he was 
quiet and never talked much, that people always believed what 
he said, and those who worked with him were always ready 
and willing to do just as he told them. 




WASHINGTON IN THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 

The Colonial Troops were led by George Washington who is said to have 

fired the first shot in the battle at Great Meadows. 



He liked the work, because he liked the free life of the 
woods and mountains, and his work was so well done that 
some of it holds good to-day. He liked to hunt and swim 
and ride and row, and all these things and all these rough 
experiences . helped him greatly to be a bold, healthy, active 
and courageous man, when the time came for him to be a 
leader and a soldier. 



20 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

People thought so much of him that when trouble began 
between the two nations that then owned almost all the land 
in America, he w^as sent with a party to try and settle a quar- 
rel as to which nation owned the land west of the mountains. 

These two nations were France and England. They were 
far beyond the Atlantic Ocean. Virginia and all the country 
between the mountains and the sea, from Maine to Georgia, 
belonofed to the Kingf of EnHand. There was no President 
then, and there were no United States, for all this country was 
under the rule of far-off monarchs. 

George Washington went off to the western country and 
tried to settle the quarrel, but the French soldiers would not 
settle it as the English wished them to. They built forts in 
the country, and said they meant to keep it all for the King of 
France. It was a long and dangerous journey that young 
Washington made, through hundreds of miles of woods, with 
rivers and mountains to cross, and among Indians who tried 
to kill him. But he came back safe — after crossing a great 
river full of floating ice and going through other perils — and 
told the Governor of Virginia w^hat the French had said. 

W^ashington was soon sent out again, this time with a 
party of soldiers. He fought w^ith the French and Indians, 
but there were too many of them for his few men. The King 
of England was very angry when he learned that the French 
w^ere building forts on what he said was his land, though no- 
body really owned it but the Indians. 

He determined to drive them away, and sent soldiers 
from England to fight them. They were led by a general 
named Braddock, who knew all about war in Europe, and had 
plenty of courage, but had never fought in such a land as Amer- 
ica, where there were great forests and Indians, and other 
things very different from what he was used to. But he 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



21 



thought he knew all about war, and would not listen to what 
anyone told him. Poor Braddock paid dearly for his conceit. 
George Washington knew that if General Braddock and 
the British soldiers wished to whip the French, and the Indi- 
ans who were on the French side, they must be very careful 
when they were marching through the forests to battle. He 
tried to make General Braddock see this, too, and to tell him 
what to do, but the British general vk .^^ <^ 




thought he knew 
best, and told Wash- 
ington to mind his 
own business. 

So the British 
soldiers marched 
through the forests 
just as if they were parading down the 
streets of London. They looked very 
fine, but they were not careful of themselves, and one day, in 
the midst of the forest, the French and Indians, who were 
hiding behind trees waiting for them, began to fire at them 
from the thick, dark woods. 

The British were caught in a trap. They could not see 
their enemies. They did not know what to do. General 
Braddock was killed ; so were many of his soldiers. They 



BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT. 



22 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

would all have been killed or taken prisoners if George Wash- 
ington had not been there. He knew just what to do. He 
fought bravely, and when the British soldiers ran away he 
and his Americans kept back the French and Indians, and 
saved what was left of the army. 

But it was a terrible defeat for the soldiers of the King of 
England. He had to send more soldiers to America, and the 
war went on for years. Washington was kept busy fighting 
the Indians, to save the lives of the poor settlers on the bor- 
ders. In the end the French were defeated, and had to give 
up all their land in America to the English. That was the 
war which is called the French and Indian War. 

Washington had been so brave that the Legislature of 
Virginia spoke in very great praise of his services. Washing- 
ton was there and rose to thank them, but he was so confused 
that he blushed, stammered, trembled and could not speak. 

"Sit down, Mr. Washington," said the Speaker. "Your 
modesty equals your valor, and that is greater than any lan- 
guage I can use." 

Soon after this Washington married. His wife, whose 
name was Martha Custis, brought him a large fortune, and he 
had a good deal of property of his own. They went to live 
in a beautiful house on the banks of the Potomac River, in 
Virginia. It is called Mount Vernon. It was Washington's 
home all the rest of his life. The house is still standing, and 
people nowadays go to visit this beautiful place, just to see 
the spot that everyone thinks so much of because it was the 
home of Washington. 

Washington showed himself as good a farmer as he had 
been a soldier. Daily he rode over his great estate, and every- 
thing he had to do ^vith went on like clock-work. He was 
prompt, careful, and full of method, fond of his work and of 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



23 



hunting with horse and hounds, and would have liked nothing 
better than to spend all his life at Mount Vernon. But that 
was not to be, for a new war was coming on, and the farmer 
had to buckle on his old sword again. 

The trouble came from King George of England, who 
was not satisfied with the way things were going in the colon- 
ies. He tried to 
make the people 
pay him more 
money in taxes 
than they thought 
was right and just. 
The Americans 
said that the king 



was acting very 
wrongly toward 
them, and that they 
would not stand it. 

They did not. 
When the king's 
soldiers tried to 
make them do as 
the king ordered, 
they said they 
would die rather 
than yield, and in 
a place called Lexington, in Massachusetts, there was a fight 
with the soldiers, and another at Concord. The British had 
to hurry back to Boston, and many of them were killed. 

This is what is called rebellion. It made the king very 
angry, and he sent over ships full of soldiers to punish the 
rebels. The men in the colonies said they would fight the 




NOMINATION OF WASHINGTON AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 
OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY 



24 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

soldiers if the king tried to make them do as he wished. So 
an army gathered around Boston, and there they had a famous 
battle with the king's soldiers, called the Battle of Bunker 
Hill, in which they showed how well they could fight. 

The leading men in the colonies saw that they must put 
a brave man at the head of their army, and for this they chose 
Washington, whom they knew to be one of their best soldiers. 

Washington rode all the way from Philadelphia, where 
he then was, to Cambridge, in Massachusetts, on horse- 
back, for they had no steamcars or steamboats in those days, 
and there was no other way to travel. As he was riding 
through Connecticut, with a few soldiers as his guard, a man 
came galloping across the country, telling people how the bat- 
tle of Bunker Hill had been fought. ^ The British soldiers had 
driven the Americans from the fort, he said, but it had been 
hard work for them. 

Washington stopped the rider, and asked him why the 
Americans had given up the fort. 

"Because they had no powder and shot left," replied the 
messenger. 

"And did they stand the fire of the British guns as long 
as they could fire back?" asked Washington. 

"That they did," replied the horseman. "They waited, 
too, until the British were close to the fort, before they fired." 

That was what Washington wished to know. He felt 
certain that if the American farmer boys who stood out against 
the king's soldiers did not get frightened or timid in the face 
of the trained soldiers of the king, that they would be the kind 
of soldiers he needed to win with. 

He turned to his companions and said: "Then the liber- 
ties of the country are safe," and he rode on to Cambridge to 
take command of the army. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



25 



It was July 3, 1 775, when he took command of the Ameri- 
can forces. He was then forty- three years of age, tall, stately, 
digniiied, noble in face, and a soldier all through. In his 
continental uniform of blue and buff he sat his horse under a 
shady elm, and drew the sword with whose help he hoped to 
make his country free. 
Yet years were to pass, 
and many sad days to 
come and go, before he 
would succeed. 

We cannot tell here 
the story of this long 
and terrible war, nor 
even of all Washington 
had to do in it. There 
was fighting for seven 
years, and through it 
all the chief man in 
America, the man who 
led the soldiers and 
fought the British, and 
never gave up, nor let 
himself or his soldiers 
grow afraid even when 
he was beaten, was 
General Washington. 

If the British drove him away from one place, he marched 
to another, and he fought and marched, and kept his army 
brave and determined, even when ragged and tired, and when 
everything looked as if the British would be successful. 

He drilled his army of farmers at Cambridge and forced 
the British to leave Boston without having to fight a battle. 




MEETING OF WASHINGTON AND ROCHAMBEAU. 

The French Allies ia the Revolutionary War were 
commanded by General Rochambeau. 



26 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

But he did not always have such good luck as that. They 
defeated him at Brooklyn, on Long Island, and made him 
leave New York, and chased him across New Jersey. But 
when all looked dark for the Americans, he led his army, one 
terrible winter's night, across the Delaware River and fell upon 
the British, when they were not expecting him, and won the 
Battle of Trenton, taking many prisoners. After that the 
Americans felt in much better spirits. 

But there were many hard and bitter days for George 
Washington through those years of fighting. A winter came 
in which the British soldiers seemed victorious everywhere. 
They held the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and the 
small American army was half-starved, cold and shivering at 
a place in Pennsylvania called Valley Forge. When their 
log huts were all covered with snow, and they had hardly 
clothes enough to keep them warm, or food to keep them 
from being hungry, it was not easy for the soldiers to see vic- 
tory ahead. If it had not been for Washington, the Ameri- 
can army would have melted away during that dreadful winter 
at Valley Forge. 

But he held it together, and when spring came marched 
away with it from Valley Forge, following the British, who 
had been forced to leave Philadelphia, where they had been 
living well all winter. Part of his army was attacked by the 
British at a place called Monmouth Court House, and was 
almost beaten and driven back, when General Washington 
came galloping up. He stopped the soldiers who were run- 
ning away ; he brought up other soldiers to help them, and he 
fought so boldly and bravely, and was so determined, that at 
last he drove off the British, and won the battle of Monmouth. 

You see, Washington would not give up when people 
told him he would have to, and that the British would get all 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



27 



the cities and towns. He said that the country was large, and 
that, sooner than give in, he would go with his soldiers into 
the mountains and keep up the war until the British were so 
sick of it that they would finally go away. 

So he kept on marching and fighting, and never gave up, 
even when things looked worst, and at last, on the 19th of 
October in the year 1781, he captured a whole British army, 
commanded by Lord Cornwallis, at a place called Yorktown, 
in Virginia. That brought the war to an end. , 

So the United States won their freedom. They have 
been a great nation ever since, and every American, from that 
day to this, knows that they became a free people because they 
had such a great, brave, noble, patriotic, strong and glorious 
leader as General George Washington. 

After the Revolution was over, and Washington had said 
good-bye to his soldiers and his generals, he went back to 
Mount Vernon and became a farmer again. He was glad 
enough of the chance, for he loved a quiet life, and he hoped 
now to spend the rest of his days in quiet on his farm. 

But the people of America would not let him stay a -far- 
mer. They were not done with him yet. A convention met 
in Philadelphia, and, after much thought and talk, they drew ' 
up a paper that said just how the new nation should be gov- 
erned. That is called the Constitution of the United States. 
It declared that, instead of a king, the people should choose 
a man to be the head of the nation for four years at a time. 
He was to preside over the affairs of the nation and be chief 
ruler, and so he was called the President. 

When the time came to elect the first President, there 
was one man in the United States that everybody wanted. 
This man was George Washington, to whom the people felt 
that they owed their liberty. It was a great day for the new 



2S GEORGE WASHINGTON 

nation when he was declared President. All along the way, 
as he rode from Mount Vernon to New York, people came 
out to welcome him. They fired cannon and rang bells, and 
made bonfires and put up arches and decorations ; little girls 
scattered flowers in his path and sang songs of greeting, and 
whenever he came to a town or city every one marched in 
procession, escorting Washington through their town. 

When he got to New York, after he had crossed the bay 
in a big rowboat, he went in a fine procession to a building 
called "Federal Hall," on Wall Street, and there he stood, 
on the front balcony of the building, in face of all the people, 
and, with his hand on an open Bible, he said he would be a 
wise and good and faithful President. Then the judge who 
had read to him the words he repeated, lifted his hand and 
cried out: "Long live George Washington, President of the 
United States!" A flag was run up to the cupola of the hall, 
cannon boomed, bells rang, and all the people cheered and 
cheered their hero and general, whom they had now made the 
head of the whole nation. 

So George Washington became President of the United 
States. He worked just as hard to make the new nation 
strong and great and peaceful, as he had done when he led the 
army in the Revolution. People had all sorts of things to 
suggest. Some of these things were foolish, some were wrong, 
and some would have been certain to have broken up the Uni- 
ted States, and lost all the things for which the country fought 
in the Revolution. 

But Washington was at the head. He knew just what to 
do, and he did it. From the day when, in the City of New 
York, he was made President, he gave all his thought and all 
his time and all his strength to making the United States 
united and prosperous and strong. And when his four years 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



29 



as President were over, the people would not give him up, 
but elected him for their President for another four years. 

When Washington was President, the Capital of the Uni- 
ted States was first at New York, and afterward at Philadelphia. 
Washington and his wife, whom we know of as Martha Wash- 
ington, lived 
in fine style 
and made 




THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON RECEIVING MARQUIS LAFAYETTE 

Previous to his departure for Europe, in the Fall of 1784, the Marquis de Lafayette, the distinguished 

French Officer and friend of Washington, repaired to Fredericksburg to pay his parting 

respects to Washington's mother and to ask her blessing. 

gave receptions, to which the people would come to be intro- 
duced and to see the man of whom all the world was talking:. 
Washington was then a splendid-looking man. He was tall 
and well-built. He dressed in black velvet, with silver knee 
and shoe buckles ; his hair was powdered and tied up in what 



30 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

was called a "queue." He wore yellow gloves, and held his 
three-cornered hat in his hand. A sword, in a polished white- 
leather sheath, hung at his side, and he would bow to each 
one who was introduced to him. He had so good a memory, 
that, if he heard a man's name and saw his face at one intro- 
duction, he could remember and call him by name when he 
met him again. But though he was so grand and noble, he 
was very simple in his tastes and his talk, and desired to 
have no title, like prince or king or duke, but only this — the 
President of the United States. 

His second term as President was just as successful as 
his first four years had been. He kept the people from get- 
ting into trouble with other countries ; he kept them from war 
and danger, and quarrels and losses. But it tired him out, 
and made him an old man before his time. He had given 
almost all his life to America. 

When his second term was ended, the people wished him 
to be President for the third time. But he would not. He 
wrote a long letter to the people of America. It is called 
"Washington's Farewell Address." He told them they were 
growing stronger and better, but that he was worn out and 
must have rest. He said also that if they would be wise and 
peaceful and good, they would become a great nation ; and 
that all they had fought for and all they had gained would 
last, if they would only act right. If they did this they would 
become great, united and powerful. 

So another man was made President, and Washington 
went back to his farm at Mount Vernon. He was the great- 
est, the wisest and the most famous man in all America. Peo- 
ple said it was because of what he had done for them that 
their country was free and powerful and strong. They said 
that he was "The Father of his Country," and was "First 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 



31 



in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 
men." But what pleased 
him most was to get back 
to his quiet life at Mount 
Vernon, and be done with 
courts and armies. He 
found very much to do, and 
he mended and built and 
enlarged things and rode 
over his broad plantations, 
or received in his fine old 
house the visitors who 
came there to see the great- 
est man in all America, and 
lived a very happy and 
peaceful life. 

There came a time 
when he thought he would 
have to give up this pleas- 
ant life and go to be a sol- 
dier once more. For it 
seemed as if there would 
be war between France and 
the United States, and Con- 
gress begged Washington 
to take command of the 
army once more. He was 
made lieutenant-general 
and commander-in-chief, 
and hurried to Philadelphia 
to gather his army together. Fortunately the w^ar did not 
occur, and the new nation was saved all that trouble and 




LORD CORNWALLIS WHO SURRENDERED TO 
WASHINGTON AT YORKTOWN. 



32 GEORGE WASHINGTON 

bloodshed. But Washington was ready, if needed. So he 
went back again to his beloved Mount Vernon. But he did 
not live long to enjoy the peace and quiet that were his right. 
For one December day, as he was riding over his farm, he 
caught cold and had the croup. He had not the strength 
that most boys and girls have to carry him through such a 
sickness. He was worn out, and, though the doctors tried 
hard to save his life, they could not, and in two days he died. 
It was a sad day for America — the twelfth day of December, 
in the year 1799. 

All the world was sorry, for all the world had come to 
look upon George Washington as the greatest man of the 
time. Kings and nations put on mourning for him, and, all 
over the world, bells tolled, drums beat, and flags were dropped 
to half-mast, when the news came that Washington was dead. 

More than a hundred years have passed since then, but 
the memory of Washington is loved as much as he was loved 
himself when alive. In the country he set free cities and 
towns and a State have been named after him, and there are 
fine statues to his honor in the cities, and streets and build- 
ings bear his name, and beautiful old Mount Vernon, where 
he lived and died, is a place which all Americans love to visit. 

No man nobler and purer than George Washington ever 
lived in America, and if you want to grow up good and noble 
men and women you cannot do better than to read the life of 
Washington, and try to be like him. 



JOHN ADAMS 

THE SECOND PRESIDENT. 



THE MASSACHUSETTS PATRIOT. 

What do you think of a his- 
tory written in letters ? Some per- 
sons' histories are all written that 
way, and that is the way a great 
deal of John Adams's life was writ- 
ten. His wife was a fine letter 
f^ writer, and so was he, and as they 
had to live apart for years, they 
kept writing to one another. These 
letters have been kept and pub- 
lished, and good ones they are. 
They tell us much about the stirring 
times of the Revolution that we 
would not know only for them. I shall have to give you 
some passages from these letters as I go on. 

The name of Adams is a great one in American history. 
Sam Adams has been called the " Father of the Revolution." 
He was a Boston man and a cousin of John Adams. It was 
he that set the people to throw the tea overboard ; .and when 
the British marched to Lexington they went there to catch him, 
but they didn't. They caught something a good deal worse. 
John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams both 
became Presidents of the United States. His grandson, 
Charles Francis Adams, was an able statesman, who was once 

3 33 




JOHN ADAMS. 



34 JOHN ADAMS 

minister to England and was once nominated for Vice-Presi- 
dent ; and his great-grandson, another Charles Francis Adams, 
is one of our leading railroad men. I do not know any other 
family in America which can show four generations of such 
able men. 

John Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, on 
October 19, 1735. This place is on the south shore of the 
great bay which is now known as Boston Harbor. His father 
had a small farm in the poor and rocky New England ground, 
where it took a good deal of hard digging and scratching to 
make a small living. While the little fellow was helping to 
chop wood, and clear away snow, and look after the horses 
and cows, and work in the fields, I doubt if any dream came 
to him that he would one time live in a great mansion and 
rule over a great nation. There is a thick cloud over the 
future, and it is often well that we cannot see through it. 

The boy did his share of work ; but he had his share of 
fun, too ; for he was a healthy and wholesome little fellow. 
In the winter there were skating and sleighing, and in the 
summer there were fishing in the streams, and hunting in the 
woods, and plenty of boyish sports besides. He went to 
school in a little old school-house near his home, but he was 
fonder of play than he was of books. When he got old 
enough, his father asked him what he would rather do ; go to 
college, or go to work; and what work he would like. 

*' I think I would rather try farming," said John. 

*' Very well, you may go to work in the fields." 

John did go to work next day, working from sunrise to 
sunset, as farmers did in those days and long after. That was 
real work ; it was not half play, as he had been used to. He 
came home at night hungry, and thirsty, and tired, and dusty, 
and stiff as an old log. 



JOHN ADAMS 



35 



'* I think I would rather go to work among the books," 
he said, with his eyes on the ground, for he was ashamed to 
look his father in the fac 

''Very well. This is what I want you to do ; to go to 
college and get an education." 

And to Harvard College he went. He graduated in 
1 755, just as the French and Indian War began, and when 
Washington and Braddock were marching over the mountains 
to find the Indians waiting for them behind the trees. 

The young college graduate did not know what to do any 
more than before. He tried school-teaching, but soon got 

tired of that. Then he had one notion 
to be a minister, and another to be a 
lawyer. He was restless and uneasy 
and often out of 
spirits. For a time 
he was eager to be a 
soldier and fight in 
the great war. But 
he did not care to 
carry a musket. He 
wanted to be a captain and to command "a company of 
foot, a troop of horse." 

But he soon found that no captains were wanted, so he 
set himself to study the law. And he studied hard and long. 
He had got over playing with his books. In 1758 he began 
to practice law. He got plenty to do, but he did not make 
much money, for the people of Braintree were poor and could 
not pay large fees. Yet he became well known as an able 
lawyer and a man of strong mind and clear thoughts. He 
had a fine sounding voice, too, and people liked to hear him 
speak. 




A CHAISE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 



36 JOHN ADAMS 

In 1764 he did one of the best things of his Hfe ; he mar- 
ried Abigail Smith, the handsome young daughter of a clergy- 
man of Weymouth. She was a woman in a hundred, bright, 
intelligent, refined, tender and loving. None of our Presi- 
dents had a better wife, and you may be sure she helped her 
husband greatly in the stormy times that followed. No one can 
write about John Adams without a very good word for his wife. 

The stormy times soon began. The year after John 
Adams was married the British Stamp Act was passed. The 
king had determined to tax the Americans by making them 
buy stamps for their papers, and without giving them the 
chance to say a word about it. Then there was an uproar. 
No one would use a -stamp or pay a penny of the tax. 
Adams was bitter against it. He made a great speech, telling 
what he thought about it. The people of America were ready 
to tax themselves and help the king w^ith money, but they 
said that no Parliament across the seas should tax them 
against their will. 

All the people were not on the patriot side. There were 
plenty of Tories, men who said the king must be right, what- 
ever he did. But Adams had been a strong patriot from the 
beginning. He wrote and spoke his mind very plainly. There 
was nothing going on that he did not take a hand in. He 
wrote strong articles for the papers, and some of these were 
copied by the London papers and thought to be very good. 

All this worried the British leaders, you may well think. 
They saw the sort of man that Adams was and tried to get him 
on their side. A good paying position was offered him, that 
of Advocate-General, but he would not take it, for he looked 
on it as a bribe to turn him away from his country. 

One of the best and noblest things John Adams ever did 
was in 1770. He then showed that it was justice and not 




"I AM READY FOR ANY SERVICE THAT I CAN GIVE MY COUNTRY" 

1798 our Government was about to declare war against p'rance. Congress appointed Washington commander-in-chief 

of the American Army. The Secretary of War carried the commission in person to Mt. Vernon. The old 

hero, sitting on his horse in the harvest field accepted in the above patriotic words. 



JOHN ADAMS 



37 



passion that ruled him. Have you ever read of the "Boston 
Massacre ?" A party of soldiers were attacked by a mob, and 
they fired on them and some of the people were killed. 

This made a terrible excitement. The Bostonians were so 
furious that the troops had to be taken out of the city. The 
soldiers who fired were arrested and tried for murder. What 
did John Adams, the great patriot, do ? He became their 

lawyer and defen- ^:^r^_-=^ -- . ^ — '^" >^ 

ded them before 
the court. He said 
it was the people 
and not the soldiers 
who were in fault. 




FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, "THF CRADLE OF LIBERTY." 

And he won his case, too. All but two of the soldiers 
were set free. These two had killed men by their shots and 
they were sentenced to be branded in the hand. They were 
then set free like the others. It was a great victory for justice 
and for John Adams, and nobody thought the worse of him 
for it. 



38 JOHN ADAMS 

Four years now passed by and the trouble in the colonies 
kept getting worse. The tea that was sent to Boston was 
thrown overboard by the people, and it made things boil. 
After that more soldiers were sent to Boston and no vessels 
were let in or out of the harbor. That was done to punish 
the citizens. Business stopped, and it looked as if many of 
the people of Boston would starve. 

By this time John Adams had become a great lawyer and 
had a large practice. But he set that aside in 1774, when the 
First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and he was 
elected one of the members. He had never been out of New 
England before, but he rode boldly and bravely away. There 
he was to meet George Washington and Patrick Henry and 
other great and famous men. In all the work done by that 
Congress John Adams had a hand, and he was looked on as 
one of its best men. 

Now began those interesting letters between him and 
his wife, which were kept up whenever they were apart. It 
was a sore trial for him to leave his home. One of his letters 
closes with, "My babes are never out of my mind, nor absent 
from my heart." On the same day his wife wrote : 

" Five weeks have passed, and not one line have I 
received. I would rather give a dollar for a letter by the post, 
though the consequence should be that I ate but one meal a 
day these three weeks to come." 

Those were not the days of rapid mails and cheap post- 
age. Boston then seemed ten times as far from Philadelphia 
as it is to-day. It was a million times as far away, if we 
consider the speed of the telegraph. 

The next year another Congress met, and it had new and 
strong work to do. The famous fight of Lexington and Con- 
cord had been fought, and the Yankee farmers, in their 



JOHN ADAMS 39 

homespun clothes and with their old guns in their hands, 
were all around Boston, with the British fast inside. 

Adams was in Philadelphia again. He could not help 
feeling worried about his family in Braintree. Rewrote to his 
wife, "In case of real danger fly to the woods with our children." 

Soon after there were fifteen thousand armed farmers 
about Boston, and she wrote about the troubles and confusion 
of the times : 

"Soldiers coming in for a lodging, for breakfast, for 
supper, for drinks. Sometimes refugees from Boston, tired 
and fatigued, seek an asylum for a day, a night, a week. You 
can hardly imagine how we live. Yet 

" To the houseless child of want 
Our doors are open still; 
And though our portions are but scant, 
We give them with good will. 

" Hitherto I have been able to maintain a calmness and 
presence of mind. I hope I shall, let the exigency of the 
time be what it will." 

A strong, earnest, kindly soul was that of Abigail Adams, 
as you would see abundantly, if I could quote more from her 
letters. 

There were weak men in Congress, as there were strong 
ones, and John Adams grew angry when steps of a feeble 
kind were taken. He was for liberty, at any cost. It did his 
heart good when George Washington, the brave Virginian, 
came into Congress in his uniform, before setting out for 
Boston. It was he who had proposed Washington for 
commander-in-chief And it made his heart bound with joy 
the next year when Richard Henry Lee, another Virginian, 
brought in a resolution ** that these United Colonies are, and 
of right ought to be, Free and Independent States." 



40 JOHN ADAMS 

John Adams could not be restrained. He sprang to his 
feet and warmly seconded the resolution. Congress thought 
that so great a resolution should be put in the best shape, so 
it chose five men as a committee to do this. Their names 
were John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, 
Roger Sherman and Robert R. Livingston. 

Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, and it 
was so good that only a few changes were made in it. On 
July 2, 1776, it was brought before Congress. Some mem- 
bers opposed it and spoke against it. John Adams upheld it 
in one of the greatest speeches that Congress heard. Jeffer- 
son said of the speaker and his speech : 

"John Adams was the ablest advocate and champion 
of independence on the floor of the House. He was the 
colossus of that Congress. Not graceful, not eloquent, not 
always fluent in his public addresses, he yet came out with a 
power of thought and expression which moved his hearers 
from their seats." 

The next day he wrote a famous letter to his. wife. It 
has often been quoted, and it is well worth quoting again : 
Here is its celebrated passage : 

" Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever 
was debated in America ; and a greater, perhaps, never was, 
nor will be, decided among men. The second day of July, 
1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of 
America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by 
succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It 
ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance by 
solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God. It ought to be 
solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, 
guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of the 
continent to the other from this time forward, forevermore." 



JOHN ADAMS 41 

This is the kind of patriot John Adams was. His words 
have come true, but for the fourth, not the second, of July. 
The fourth was the day when the Declaration was signed, 
when Independence bell was rung, and when John Hancock, 
another Bostonian, who was President of Congress and wrote 
his name first, did it in that broad, bold hand, which he said 
" the king of England could read without spectacles." 

Now we must go on faster. John Adams worked hard 
in that Congress. He was placed at the head of the War 
Department, which gave him plenty to do. He was chairman 
of very many committees. In 1777 he was selected to go to 
France and try and make a treaty with that country. 

It was a dangerous journey he made across the ocean the 
next winter. The British said he was a rinHeader amone the 
rebels. If they had caught him it would have gone hard with 
him„ They might have hung him or cut off his head. 

But he went, in the frigate Boston. His oldest son, who 
was to be President after him, went with him. They had not 
been out a week before an English warship chased the Boston. 
Adams urged the crew to fight like heroes. They had better 
sink with their ship than go to a British prison. But the 
Boston escaped. 

After that there was a fight with a British privateer. It 
was a hard battle. Cannon were roaring, and when they got 
close enough guns began to flash and crack. Captain Tucker 
saw his passenger on deck and asked him to go below to a 
safer place. But Adams had too much fight in him. Soon 
after the captain saw him with a musket in his hand, firing 
away like a common sailor. 

"Why are you here, sir," cried the captain angrily. ** I 
am commanded to carry you safely to Europe, and I will do 



42 JOHN ADAMS 

it." And he picked up the little man in his arms as if he had 
been a child, and carried him below deck. 

The privateer was captured, and the Boston kept on and 
got safely to France in March, 1778. But Adams got there 
too late for the business on which he had been sent, for Ben- 
jamin Franklin was there, and had already made the treaty. 

After that John Adams spent many years in Europe. He 
did some good work there. One good piece of work was in 
April, 1782, when he got Holland to recognize the United 
States. For that he was made Minister to Holland. In 
November of that year he was one of the four men who made 
the treaty of peace with Great Britain. He had been in the 
Revolution at its start and he was in it at the close. 

A great honor came to him in 1784, when he was ap- 
pointed the first United States Minister to Great Britain. He 
had been in London the year before, helping to make a treaty 
of commerce. Now he stood before George HI, the king, as 
the representative of a new nation. 

The king acted like a gentleman when they met, and 
said something which brought from the dauntless patriot the 
answer : 

" I must tell Your Majesty that I love no country but 
my own." 

" An honest man will never love any other," said the 
king, in a gracious tone. 

Adams' great love for his country was shown in what 
he had said years before : " Sink or swim, survive or perish 
with my country, is my unalterable determination." 

But Adams met many cold looks in the British cap- 
ital, and was very glad to get home again in 1788. He 
had seen his last of Europe and seen all he wanted to of 
foreign lands. His wife, who had been with him, and was 



JOHN ADAMS 43 

treated coldly by the British queen, was as glad as he to get 
back to the land of liberty and equal rights. 

The next year a still greater honor came to John Adams, 
for he was selected to be the first Vice-President of the United 
States, as Washington was for the first President. For eight 
years he held this post of honor, and then, when Washington 
declined to serve any longer, John Adams was elected Presi- 
dent in his place. Thomas Jefferson, his associate in the 
Declaration, was made Vice-President. 

Adams, as President, had many difficulties to meet, as 
Washington had before him. The worst of these was with 
France, which had just gone through its great Revolution. 
Its new rulers wanted to see Jefferson, whom they liked, made 
President, and were so angry when Adams was elected that 
they refused to receive the new Minister he sent them. 

This was a bitter insult. Then they passed a shameful 
decree against American commerce. It was hard for Adams, 
with his fiery temper, to bear all this, much as he wanted 
peace. It was worse when the French rulers tried to make 
the Americans pay them for peace. They wanted to be bribed, 
but Charles Pinckney, one of the envoys, cried out indig- 
nantly, ''Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute." 

That was a good motto for Americans, and everybody 
repeated it. All over the country there was a cry for war. 
Adams had tried to keep peace with France, but this was 
more than he could stand. An army was called out, and 
Washington agreed to lead it. The navy was ordered to 
fight, and it did. It captured two French frigates and many 
smaller vessels. That was enough for the French. They 
backed down and a treaty of peace was made. 

This made Adams very popular. But there were things 
done in his administration that made him unpopular, and 



44 JOHN ADAMS 

when the time came for the next election he was defeated 
and Jefferson was elected. The old Federal party, to which 
Adams belonged, was going down hill, and the new Demo- 
cratic party, of which Jefferson was the head, was coming up. 

Adams was bitterly disappointed. He had been sure of 
a second term as President. He felt so sore that he would not 
wait at Washington to welcome the new President, which was 
a very unwise thing for him to do, and only served to make 
him more enemies. 

That ended the public life of John Adams. He was 
never called into service again. For the rest of his life he 
remained at home, happy, no doubt, with his wife and family, 
his books and his writings. But it was hard for him to for- 
give his enemies ; for under his greatness there was a little- 
ness of vanity, self-conceit and obstinacy. He never could 
see any side but his own, and always thought himself to be 
right. And there were no soft, smooth ways in John Adams. 
He was always blunt and plain spoken, and often offended 
the smiling diplomats of Europe, who knew how to lie in a 
very courteous tone. Franklin was much better fitted to deal 
with them than Adams. He wrote about him, " Mr. Adams 
is always an honest man, often a wise one ; but he is some- 
times completely out of his senses." 

But as he grew older he grew softer, and finally forgave 
them all. The bad feeling between him and Jefferson passed 
away, and they once more became friends. If he was not 
called to office again, he had the great satisfaction and pride 
of seeing his son President of the United States. 

Then, on July 4, 1826, he closed his eyes and passed 
away, on the same day that Jefferson died. His last words 
were, "Thomas Jefferson still lives." He was mistaken. 
Jefferson had died a few hours before. 









. 


i 






k 


i 








vH 
«■ 

1 









THOMAS JEFFERSON 




ANDREW JACKSON 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 



THE THIRD PRESIDENT. 




THE WRITER OF THE DECLARATION OP INDEPENDENCE. 

I need not ask you if you have 
ever heard of the "Declaration of In- 
dependence." The American who 
docs not know about that great paper, 
whether he be man or boy, ought to go 
rio^ht back to school, Tor he has some- 
U thing still to learn. But it is not 
^^^^ enough to know about the Declara- 
I'tion; he should know also about the 
man who wrote it, the famous Thomas 
Jefferson. 

THOMAS JEFFERSON. Ncarty two huudrcd years ago a 

man named Peter Jefferson married a wife and brought her to 
live on his plantation, which was in Virginia, near where the 
town of Charlottesville now stands. He named his place 
Shadwell, because his wife was born in a place of that name 
in England. A great, sturdy fellow was Peter Jefferson, as 
strong as three common men. And he was as sensible as he 
was strong, which is not always the case. 

It was a fine old mansion in which the Jeffersons lived, 
and in which Thomas Jefferson, the oldest son, was born in 
the year 1 743. It stood near the Blue Ridge Mountains, and 
from its windows one could have a fine view over mountains 

45 



46 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 




and forests for miles. Here the children played and studied 
and grew. There was quite a little flock of them, boys and 
girls. But, by bad fortune, their father died when Thomas was 
only fourteen years old, and left the mother and children to 
make their way alone. 

The poor mother had them all to take care of now. She 

thought ever so 
much of Thomas, 
and let him do 
much as he pleased. 
-^■~ , It was well he was 
{. a good boy, and 
did not please to 
do anything that 
was wrong. He 
learned to ride, and 
swim, and shoot, 
and he was a great 
reader besides. 

There were wild 
Indians about in 
those days, but 
they did not harm 
the boy. Thomas 

JEFFERSON AND THE COMMITTEE, PREPARING THE DECLARA- gOt tO bC VCry foud 
TION OF INDEPENDENCE, IN EARNEST DEBATE. ^ . - 

of music, and spent 
many hours in learning to play the violin, or fiddle, as he 
called it. We are told that, instead of shooting Indians, as 
some people did, he played tunes for their boys to dance to, 
and the older Indians grew to like him very much. 

The boy began to study when he was only five years old, 
and he kept at it as he grew older, for he was fond of reading 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 47 

and thinking. After his father died he was sent to a very 
good school, fourteen miles from his home, and two years 
afterward he was sent to William and Mary College, at Wil- 
liamsburg, which was then the capital of Virginia. The boy 
had never seen even a village of twenty houses, and this lit- 
tle place of a thousand people must have seemed like a large 
city to him. 

A tall, straight, slender lad was Thomas, with large hands 
and feet, a freckled face, and reddish hair. He was no beauty, 
but he had bright eyes and a very pleasant way, and he soon 
made friends. He studied long and hard, but when he had 
a holiday he spent it in hunting, and was so swift of foot that 
the deer had to run fast to escape him. Every night he would 
run a mile out of town and back again for exercise. He liked 
to dance, too, and did not forget his violin, and was so cheer- 
ful and genial that everybody liked him. 

After he left college he studied law. And all the time 
he was doing this he was also taking care of his mother's 
large plantation, riding about the place, hunting in the woods, 
and keeping as busy as a bee. After he became a lawyer he 
had plenty to do in the courts, and he was soon elected to 
the Virginia legislature, where he was not long in showing how 
sturdy a patriot he was. Those were the days of the Stamp 
Act and the Tea Tax, and the other things that made Ameri- 
cans wish for liberty. Among the lovers of liberty there were 
none who went ahead of Thomas Jefferson. 

In 1770 his old home at Shadwell took fire and burned 
to the ground when he and his mother were away. When he 
heard of it he was much troubled about his books, and asked 
the messenger who brought the news if any had been saved. 

"No, massa," said the slave. "Day is all burnt up; but 
de fire didn't burn your fiddle. We saved dat." 



48 THOMAS JEFFERSON 

No doubt the innocent negro thought that a fiddle was 
worth more than a houseful of law books. The fire was a 
serious loss. A new home had to be built, and this was a 
home which became famous in later years. Like Washing- 
ton's home at Mount Vernon, it is a place of pilgrimage for 
good Americans to-day. Let us tell the story of this historic 
mansion, for it has a romance of its own. 

In the summer of 1765 Martha Jefferson, a sister of 
Thomas, and a beautiful girl of nineteen, was married to 
Dabney Carr, the best loved of Jefferson's college classmates. 
Young Carr had a charming and lovable nature, and he and 
Jefferson were very intimate, studying law together. Even 
before they became brothers-in-law they were constantly in 
company. They had a favorite resort two miles from Shad- 
well, on a lonely mountain, five hundred and eighty feet in 
height. This was covered with trees. Some distance up 
its side grew a great oak under whose shade the young men 
made a rustic seat. Here they sat amid the green stillness, 
and had long and confidential talks. 

What delightful chats those must have been, with nobody 
to hear them but the singing-birds and the squirrels. It was 
these hours which afterward made that spot famous in history. 
The two friends decided that he who died first should be 
buried under the favorite oak. Jefierson kept his word. His 
friend Carr died a few years afterward and was buried in the 
chosen spot. In later years it became the burial plot of the 
family, and when Jefferson died, full of years and honors, he 
was laid by the side of his friend, beneath the very soil on 
which they had sat and studied, and had held the long and 
earnest talks of their youth. 

The hill was given the name of Monticello, or "Little 
Mountain." It had a broad, flat top which Jefferson had 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 49 

leveled off, and here he built a handsome manor-house which 
has ever since been known as Monticello. It is a charminof 
old place, with its dome and its pillared porticos, and the clock 
and weather dial on its front porch, and with its large and 
beautiful rooms, and its magnificent views. 

It was built of brick made on the place, and all the tim- 
ber was cut and shaped from trees on the ground. Jefferson 
planned the house himself, and much of the furniture was 
made on the place, from designs of his own. Near by Monti- 
cello is the University of Virginia, which was built after his 
plans, and a little farther away is the old Virginian town of 
Charlottesville. Beside the carriage road, leading up to the 
hill-top and the mansion, visitors may see the grave of Jeffer- 
son, with its modest monument. 

The young planter had need of a home, for he was going 
to be married. He had been deeply in love with a pretty girl 
when he was a boy at college ; but she married some one 
else, and left him to get over his love. This time, like Wash- 
ington, he fell in love with a widow, and, like Washington's 
wife, she was named Martha. She was beautiful, she was 
young, and she was wealthy, for she owned forty thousand 
acres of land and a large number of slaves. So by marrying 
Jefferson became one of the great land-holders of Virginia. 

There is quite an interesting story told about how he 
brought his wife home. They were married on New Year's 
day, 1772, and set out for their home, more than a hundred 
miles away, in a carriage drawn by two horses. There was 
no better way of traveling in those days, — except by putting 
more horses to their carriage. 

It was the middle of the winter. As they drove along it 
began to snow, and long before they got to their distant home 
the road was covered with a thick white carpet. Night came 
4 



Sd 



THOMAS JEFFERSON' 



on, and it was late when they reached the "little mountain'* 
and began to climb up the steep road to the house on the 
summit. When they came near there was not a light to be 
seen and darkness lay all around. The slaves, who did not 

expect their master and 
mistress at that hour, were 
all fast asleep in their 
cabins, and there was not 
a fire in the house. 

What a chilly home- 
coming was that to the 
young wife ! They had to 
go straight to bed to keep 
from freezing. But the 
next day the fires were set 




blazing and all was warm 
and cheerful, and that one 
gloomy night was to be 
followed by many happy 
days in the house to which 
they had come in the dark- 
ness and the snow. 

After that Thomas 
Jefferson became one of 
the great men of the 
country, and I must now 
tell about his public life. 
But first, you will want to know a little about his family. There 
were six children, though all but one died young. Only Martha, 
the oldest, lived to see her father die. But he had a large 
family for all that, for his dear friend, Dabney Carr, who had 
married his sister Martha, died about this time, leaving six 



A HORSEMAN SPURRING HIS HORSE TO AROUSE 

THE PEOPLE AND ANNOUNCE THAT 

THE BRITISH WERE COMING. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 5 1 

children — three boys and three girls. He left his wife poor, 
and Jefferson took her and all her children home, and brought 
them up as tenderly as if they had been his own. So Monti- 
cello was not wanting in young faces and young voices, and 
no doubt it saw plenty of the jolly pranks of boys and girls. 

But while abundant life and happiness were to be seen in 
the mansion on the hill-top, war and ruin were fast coming on 
in the country. The stupid English king was driving the 
people wild by his foolish ways. Jefferson was one of the 
leading rebels of Virginia, and when the Continental Congress 
was elected in 1775 he was one of the members whom Vir- 
ginia sent. Only one man in Congress was as young as he, 
but he was known to be an able writer, and the other mem- 
bers looked up to him as one of their best thinkers. 

It was a long journey in those days from Monticello to 
Philadelphia, where the Congress w^as held. Part of the road 
ran through the wilderness, and it took more than a week to 
get there. The day he took his seat was the day news came 
of the battle of Bunker Hill, and of the splendid way the 
"rebels" had fought. Washington was then on his way to 
Boston to take command of the army, and the \\hole country 
was getting ready to fight for liberty. 

Congress, you may be sure, had plenty to do in those 
days, and Jefferson was kept busy enough. His great work 
was the "Declaration of Independence." No doubt all of you 
have read this famous document, which told England and the 
world that America was determined to be free. When the 
time came for writing this great paper, five men, three of whom 
were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, 
were chosen to do it. But it was Jefferson that wrote it, and 
it was John Adams that presented it to Congress in a splendid 
speech. Ever since that day Jefferson has been of world-wide 



52 THOMAS JEFFERSON 

fame as the author of the " Declaration." You must go back in 
spirit to the times in which it was written to know how great 
a paper it w^as. One writer truly says, "It is the most famous 
state-paper in the w^orld." 

After that, Jefferson w^as looked upon as one of the 
greatest statesmen of America. Congress wished to send him 
to France with Dr. Franklin, but his wife was too weak to go 
wath him, and he would not go so far away from her. He 
was too good a lover for that. And there w^as plenty for him 
to do at home, for Virginia had bad old laws which had come 
over from England, and which he set himself to have repealed. 
And he did, too. He fought them till they were all gone. 

The people of Virginia honored him for what he had done, 
and chose him for their governor in 1779. I do not know 
if Jefferson thought this so great an honor, for Virginia was 
then in a sad strait. The British had got tired of fighting in 
the North, and w^ere now coming South. They would soon 
be in Virginia, and most of its fighting men had been sent 
away. The Governor had great trouble to raise a few soldiers 
to defend the State. 

Let us look at Virginia in the year 1781. In the first 
days of that year Benedict Arnold, the traitor, sailed up the 
James River wdth a large fleet. Jefferson was at Richmond, 
w^hich had been made the capital of the new State. He 
hurried his family away to a place of safety, and then rode 
back with full speed toward the capital. On the way his horse 
broke down, and he had to borrow a wild colt from a farmer. 
Before he got to Richmond Arnold held the town. 

Jefferson raised the militia for miles around, and they 
swarmed like hornets on Arnold's track. The traitor hurried 
back to his vessels and sailed away down the river, after doing 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 53 

a great deal of damage to the capital city — though it was a 
very small city then. 

Now I have to tell you one of the famous adventures in 
Jefferson's life. There was a bold cavalry leader in the British 
army named Colonel Tarleton. He had long been in South 
Carolina fighting with Marion and Morgan and other heroes 
of the South. Now he was in Virginia, and thought he saw 
the chance for a fine piece of work. Jefferson was then at his 
home in Monticello, and the legislature of Virginia was at Char- 
lottesville, three miles away. Tarleton said to himself, "Here 
is a good chance to take the whole nest of rebels at once." 

One morning before breakfast the family at Monticello 
saw a horseman spurring his horse wildly up the hill-side. 
The poor animal was white with foam. They ran to the door 
to hear him shout out, "The British are coming! Tarleton 
is coming with his dragoons ! You must fly for your lives ! " 

Jefferson questioned the messenger, and learned that 
Tarleton, with two hundred and iifty men, had galloped at 
midnight into Louisa, a town twenty miles away. They were 
now coming at full speed for Monticello. The news threw 
the family into a panic. Jefferson was the only cool one 
among them. He told them there was time enough, and 
made them eat their breakfast. Then he sent them away to a 
place of safety. He stayed behind, for there were precious 
papers which he wanted to save. 

While he was getting these another messenger came 
rushing in, calling out that the British were coming up the 
mountain. Jefferson listened. There was no sound of troops 
to be heard. He sprang on his horse and rode to a point 
where he could look down on Charlottesville. All was quiet 
and peaceful there. It seemed like a false alarm, and hq 
turned back homeward, hoping to get more of his papers, 



54 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 



A mere chance now saved Jefferson from being made a 
prisoner by the British. Looking down at his side, he saw 
that his sword was missing. It had fallen from the scabbard. 
He turned to search for it, and as he did so, looked back 
again at Charlottesville. 
There was a marvelous 
change. The litde place, 
just before so quiet, was 
now in a bustle. Armed 




TARLETON'S MEN LOOKING FOR THE REBELS. 

horsemen filled its streets, and some of them were galloping 
along the road to Monticello. Jefferson put spurs to his 
horse and rode away. He was barely in time. In little more 
than five minutes Tarleton's men were in his house. The lost 
sword had saved him from capture, perhaps from death. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 55 

If any of you should go to Monticello, you will likely be 
shown a closed passage, a sort of tunnel, leading from the man- 
sion to one of the outhouses, and you may be told that Jefferson 
escaped that way when the British were rushing in at his front 
door. That is what I was told when at Monticello. It is 
one of the fancy stories that gather round historic buildings. 

Another story is told which goes to show how faithful the 
old Virginia slaves were to their masters. We are told that 
two of the old negroes were trying to save the silver by hiding 
it in a secret place closed by a trap-door. One of them was 
inside while the other handed down the precious silver. Be- 
fore they had finished they heard the British bursting into the 
house. The slave above at once closed the trap, shutting his 
fellow in the close, dark, stifling place. The prisoner could 
easily have got out by lifting the trap-door, but he was too 
faithful for that. He stayed in the dark hole till the soldiers 
were gone, and thus saved his master's precious wares. 

There is one good thing to be said in favor of Tarleton. 
He left Jefferson's house without doing it any great harm. 
That was not the case with another of Jefferson's plantations 
on the James River, to which a party of soldiers were sent. 
Here the barns and fences were burned, the crops destroyed, 
the cattle and horses carried off and the place left a smoking 
waste. The slaves were taken, also. " If they had carried 
off the slaves to set them free they would have done right," 
said Jefferson, who did not like slavery. 

Now we must hurry on with our story. The next year 
was a sad one to Jefferson, for his beloved wife died. Befo. 
she died she made him promise never to marry again. He 
kept his word. He loved her too dearly to want another wife. 

Soon public duties called Jefferson from home. He was 
sent to Congress again in 1783, and in 1784 was chosen as 



56 THOMAS JEFFERSON 

Minister to France, with his old friends, Dr. Franklin and John 
Adams. These were three of the old committee on the 
Declaration, now sent abroad to make treaties with foreign 
nations. 

Jefferson remained five years abroad. They were stirring 
years. The great French Revolution was coming on, and 
everybody in France was talking about liberty and the rights 
of man. What he saw and heard in France made him a 
greater lover of human rights than ever. While he was in 
Paris he never forgot his country. He was always sending 
home seeds, plants, roots, everything which he thought would 
be of use to grow in American soil. 

It was 1789 when Jefferson came home. Washington 
had just been made President and had appointed him Secre- 
tary of State. It was an honor he did not want. He tried 
hard to beg off, but Washington wanted the best men of the 
country in his Cabinet, and persuaded him to accept. 

Jefferson spent five years in Washington's Cabinet, but 
those were not happy years. There were men at that time 
who would have liked to have a king over this country. 
Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, v/as one of 
these. Jefferson was a strong democrat, and he and Hamil- 
ton did not get on well together. There were quarrels in the 
Cabinet, and in January, 1 784, Jefferson gave up his office and 
went home to Monticello. 

Jefferson was like Washington in one thing ; he was fond 
of home life and of farming. He had a great taste for land- 
scape gardening and for architecture, and was never more 
happy than when he was improving and beautifying his 
grounds. And he had abundance of company, for many 
guests were glad to visit and talk with the great statesman, 
and every hour brought him pleasant occupation. 



THOMAS JEFFERSON 57 

He would have liked to spend his life at Monticello, 
busily and happily engaged, but his country wanted him again, 
j and he felt it his duty to obey. He was elected Vice-Presi- 
I dent, with John Adams as President, and for four years he 
spent his time again in public affairs. I doubt if he enjoyed 
them much, for the times were stormy and the old bad feeling 
between him and Hamilton kept up. 

In 1800 came another change. The Democratic party, 
of which Jefferson was the head, had grown to be the great 
party of the country, and he was elected President. The 
country was filled with joy when the news of his election were 
received, for he had friends and followers in every part of the 
land, and the old Federal party, of which Hamilton was the 
head, was fast going down. The people did not want a king, 
nor a President with kingly power. 

How would the great Democrat act ? people asked. 
Would he go to be inaugurated in grand state and ceremony, 
like Washington and Adams — perhaps, drawn by six cream- 
colored horses like Washington ? Those who went to Wash- 
ington to see the inauguration on March 4, 1801, must have 
been much surprised when, instead of a grand parade, they 
saw a plainly-dressed man ride up to the Capitol, without 
guard or servant, spring from his horse, and fasten its bridle 
to the fence. Then he walked to the Capitol to be inaugu- 
rated, for this was Thomas Jefferson, President of the United 
States. He wanted to let the people see that there was no 
royal pride about him. He loved simple ways and hated 
pomp and display. For eight years Jefferson was President. 
They were years full of excitement, for a great war between 
France and England was going on, and there was so much 
meddling with American ships and sailors that it was hard to 
keep our country from going to war, too. Yet this war did 



58 THOMAS JEFFERSON 

one splendid thing for America. France then held the vast 
country west of the Mississippi River called Louisiana. Napo- 
leon was afraid the British would take it from him, so he sold 
it for a small price to the United States. That was a hun- 
dred years ago. To-day this great domain has many millions 
of people and great cities, and St. Louis, the greatest of its 
cities, is about to celebrate President Jefferson's grand work 
by a magnificent World's Fair. 

Never was there a happier man in this country than 
Thomas Jefferson in 1809, when he got rid of the cares of 
office, and went home to his family, his books and his farm. 

One great pleasure of his life was his guests. He was 
the most hospitable of men. People came to Monticello in a 
steady stream, and his house was always full. Whole fami- 
lies would come, and stay for months. One family of six 
persons came from Europe and stayed ten months. Then 
they went away for a time, but came back and stayed six 
months more. All were w^elcomed by the genial host, though 
no doubt he was often tired enough of them. 

They did not only tire him, they almost beggared him. 
Large as was his estate, he found himself in poverty in the 
last year of his life. He was forced to sell his precious 
library, and there was danger of his losing his home. For- 
tunately some of his admirers came to his aid, and money 
was sent him to pay his debts. 

The veteran had not much longer to live. He failed fast 
as the summer of 1826 came on. At last he had but one 
wish, to live until the 4th of July. This wish was granted 
him. About noon of July 4th the great statesman and patriot 
breathed his last — exactly fifty years after the Declaration of 
Independence was signed, and on the same day with John 
Adams, who was with him on the committee that made it. 



JAMES MADISON 

THE FOURTH PRESIDENT. 



THE FATHER OF THE CONSTITUTION. 

Very far back in the history of 
Virginia, back in its early days, we 
meet with the well-known names of 
Jefferson and Madison. In 1619, 
when the first legislature met in 
America, one of its members was a 
planter named Jefferson. From him 
came down the great Thomas Jeffer- 
son. And about that time the ship 
which brought the Madisons to Vir- 
ginia dropped its anchor in the 
Chesapeake. Thus the Jeffersons and 
the Madisons began their life in Vir- 
Their descendants were close friends 
and neighbors all their lives. 

It was on the i6th of March, 1751, that the little boy who 
was to be our fourth President, first opened his eyes in the world. 
He was born in his grandfather s house at Port Conway, King 
George County, Virginia, but he was still very young when 
he went to live on his father's great farm at Montpelier. 

This place was in the beautiful country of the Blue Ridge, 
only twenty-five miles away from Jefierson's home at Monti- 
cello. That was almost next door in the thinly settled country 
of Virginia, and the two were all their life great friends. 

59 




7 _< » 

JAMES MADISON. 



ginia at an early date. 



6o 



JAMES MADISON 



There is not much to be said about James Madison's boy- 
hood. He was not a bit Hke Washington and Jefferson. 
While they were busy at out-door life, hunting, riding, work- 
ing, he was as busy reading and studying. He was a home- 
body, fond of books, and caring very little for play and the 
rough sports of hearty boys. Shy and thoughtful, he seemed 
like a little man before he was a big boy. What do you think 

of a boy who could 
read French and Span- 
ish while he was quite 
young, and who was 
already hard at work at 
Greek and Latin? I 
think it would have 
been better for him to 
have mixed a good deal 
of play with his 
study. The old 




hard 
say- 
ing goes that "All work 
and no play make Jack 
a dull boy." All study 
and no play are not 
much better. 

When James Madi- 
son was seventeen 
years old he went to 
Princeton College, at the quiet little college town of Prince- 
ton, in New Jersey. Here he was more of a student than 
ever. Such a tireless bookworm has not often been seen. He 
wanted to know everything. He gave himself, we are told, 
only three hours' sleep out of the twenty-four. All other time 
was given to his books and his classes, none of it to play. 



CARPENTER'S HALL, PHILADELPHIA, WHERE THE 
CONVENTION MET TO MAKE THE CONSTITUTION 
OF THE UNITED STATES. 



JAMES MADISON 6i 

What must the fun-loving college boys have thought of 
such a hopeless case as that? No doubt they made fun of 
him ; but he went on all the same. He made himself a fine 
scholar, it is true, but he injured his health so that he was 
never strong, and passed many a miserable day in later life. 
That is what comes of overwork of any kind. Our bodies 
and our constitutions are not given us to deal with as though 
they were as tough as hickory wood. It is a wonder that 
his twenty-one hours of study in a day did not kill him in 
college. But he came of sound stock and lived to be an 
old man. 

When his college life was over he studied law. He was 
a small-sized, pale, delicate young man, with a grave, serious 
face. He hardly knew what it was to laugh, and was often 
so miserable that he made up his mind he was near the end 
of his life. He was already being punished for studying too 
much, as others are punished for eating or drinking too much. 

But Madison Avas a good thinker and knew well how to 
put his thoughts on paper. People soon learned to look on 
him as an able man. In 1776 his public life began, when he 
took part in making a constitution for the new State of Vir- 
ginia, which was born that year. 

The next year his name was up for election to the Virginia 
legislature, but he was defeated. Why? Because '* he refused 
to treat the voters with whisky." I think you will say with 
me that it was an honor to be defeated on those grounds. 
Now-a-days money is used to get men to vote. In those 
days it was whisky. But very likely the money soon gets 
turned into whisky,- and there is not much difference. 

All the better people thought Madison did right not to 
try and win votes by making the voters drunk. He was made 
a member of the Governor's Council when Patrick Henry and 



62 JAMES MADISON 

Thomas Jefferson were governors, and both these great men 
had a high regard for him. 

After Jefferson's wife died and he grew sad and lonely, 
he tried to get some of his friends to come and live near him, 
so that they could meet and have long and pleasant talks. 
Madison was one of these. Jefferson wanted him to take a 
little farm near his own, and live in a small old house on it. 
But Madison did not care to give up his fine home at Mont- 
pelier, and live in a rude farm-house, even to meet and talk 
with Jefferson. 

The young student was elected to the Continental Con- 
gress in 1 780. This was a high honor for one not thirty years 
old, but Virginia had come to look on him as one of its great 
statesmen. He stayed there three years, and stormy years 
they were, for they were the closing years of the Revolution- 
ary War. But he found it a splendid school in politics, even 
if it was a trying one for a quiet man like him. 

From this time on Madison took an active part in all that 
went on in the new Republic. When he got back in the Vir- 
ginia legislature in 1 784, he and Jefferson worked hard to do 
away with the bad old religious laws, which made everybody 
pay taxes to support the Episcopal Church, which was the 
government church in Virginia. He did not believe in the 
union of Church and State, and he wrote a powerful paper 
against it which put an end to it in Virginia. Since then 
religion has been free in all parts of this country, and no one 
can be taxed for its support. All money for religion must 
be a free-will offering. 

And now Madison became a leader in the greatest work 
of the times. After the Revolution the young nation was in a 
sad way. It was over head and ears in debt ; the States were 
jealous of one another ; what was called the Union was no 



JAMES MADISON 63 

stronger than a rope of sand ; it must be bound by something 
as strong as an iron chain or it would soon fall apart. 

Madison was one of the first to see this. A strong gov- 
ernment must be formed or there would soon be no united 
government at all. Washington said, "We are one nation 
to-day and thirteen to-morrow." Madison saw that we must 
form one powerful nation or we would soon break up into 
thirteen weak ones, which England might pick up again, one 
by one. 

Let us see what steps were taken. The first was a meet- 
ing held at Mount Vernon in 1785 to settle disputes about 
the waters between Virginia and Maryland. Madison was 
there, and when he went back to the Assembly of Virginia he 
had a law passed to call a convention at Annapolis the next 
year to regulate commerce between the States. 

Here he and Alexander Hamilton brought up the ques- 
tion of a stronger union of the States, and it was decided to 
call another convention, to meet at Philadelphia in 1787, to 
see what could be done to increase the powers of the Federal 
Government. It was his great service in bringing this about 
that gave Madison the proud title of "The Father of the 
Constitution," for it was this convention that formed the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and established in this country 
the powerful Union it now possesses. 

I am not going to tell you the story of that great con- 
vention, with Washington at its head, and Franklin, Hamilton, 
Madison, and other great men among its members. Never 
was there an abler body of men. Some of them wanted to 
revise the old Articles of Confederation formed during the 
Revolution, but Madison and Hamilton said that would be a 
waste of time. There must be a new system or none at all. 
They had their way, and the new Constitution was formed. 



64 



JAMES MADISON 



What took place in that convention, which sat for six 
months behind closed doors, we know mostly from Madison. 
He made notes of all that went on, and these were published 
after his death, and very useful reading they are. 

When the Constitution was offered to the country there 
was a desperate fight over it. Madison and Hamilton and 
John Jay wrote splendid essays about it, and these were pub- 
lished in a work called "The Federalist." And while Hamil- 
ton was fighting for it in New 
York, Madison was fighting for 
it in Virginia. Here he made 
the greatest speeches of his life. 
He had against him such splen- 
did orators as Patrick Henry 
and George Mason, yet he won 
his cause and brought Virginia 
into the Union. 

When the First Congress 
of the United States met, in the 
old City Hall of New York, 
Madison was one of its mem- 
bers. Washington wanted to 
make him Secretary of State, 
and also asked him to serve as 
Minister to France, but he declined both. He was democratic 
in his views, like Jefferson, and did not like Hamilton's ideas 
about a strong central government. But he held back, for 
he was never fond of controversy. 

Now let us step aside a while from politics, and follow 
Madison into other and more flowery fields. Like Jefferson, 
he fell in love twice. The first time was with a pretty girl of 
sixteen named Catharine Floyd. The two were engaged, but 




PAUL JONES, THE NAVAL HERO OF 
THE REVOLUTION. 



JAMES MADISON 65 

the girl saw somebody she liked better and she threw her old 
lover aside. 

Madison moped for a while, but Jefferson told him to go 
back to his books and he would soon forget the pretty face. 
Jefferson had done the same thing himself. 

Eleven years passed before Madison fell in love again. 
He was now forty-three and the lady was a lovely young 
Quakeress of twenty-two. She was a very young widow, 
named Mrs. Dorothy Todd. Madison met her one day when 
he was out walking in Philadelphia and fell in love with her 
sweet face at sight. 

He tried to get an introduction, and soon got one. We 
have a letter from Mrs. Todd to a friend, in which she said, 
"Thou must come to me. Aaron Burr says that 'the great little 
Madison' has asked to be brought to see me this evening." 

Mrs. Todd did not throw her lover overboard. Though 
he was nearly twice her age, she accepted " the great little 
Madison." In September, 1794, the dainty young widow 
went to her sister's house at Harwood, in Virginia, and here 
soon after the wedding took place. It was a gay one, as was 
the habit in that old time. So pretty and sweet was the bride 
that in her earlier days, when she wore her quiet little Quaker 
gown of gray, a friend said to her: "Dolly, truly thou must 
hide thy face, so many stare at thee." 

Dolly Madison, as she was afterward known, needs a 
good introduction, for she was to" play a large part in Ameri- 
can life. For sixteen years she was to be the mistress of the 
White House, twice as long a term as any other woman 
enjoyed. And a cherished and favorite mistress she was for 
all that time. 

When Washington retired from the Presidency in 1797, 
Madison went home to Montpelier. There had been talk of 
5 



66 



JAMES MADISON 



nominating him to succeed Washington, but he positively 
dechned. He wanted some home Hfe. He was rich, he was 
famous, he was delicate, he had a charming young wife, and 
Montpelier was a delightful home. It lay between Jefferson's 
and Washington's homes, and was as comfortable a country 
mansion as either of these. And there were his cherished books. 
There he lived in peace and happiness for four years. 
Then Jefferson was elected President and selected Madison 
for his Secretary of State. For the next sixteen years he 
made his home in Washington, which had been made the 

National Capi- 



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OFABOIiLAR 



de ath : TO 

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VIRGINIA CUBirElV C Y^ 



tal in i8oo. 
The new Pres- 
ident had long 
been a widow- 
er, and the dut- 
ies of mistress 
of the White 
House fell up- 
on Dolly Mad- 
ison. And she 
fi 1 1 e d them 

with a charm and ease and a gracious dignity that won all 
hearts. She was kind and thouQ^htful and had a social o^ift 
and tact that made her hosts of friends. It is said that "Mrs. 
Madison never forgot a name or a face," and that is a faculty 
of rare value in high places. For eight years Madison held 
his important office. France and England were then at war, 
and were interfering with American ships and sailors in a 
way that made our people very angry. It was no easy matter 
to keep the country out of war, but Jefferson and Madisoa 
both wanted peace, and managed to preserve it. 



JAMES MADISON 67 

In 1809 Jefferson's term ended and James Madison was 
elected President of the United States. The hard-work- 
ing student of Princeton had reached the highest post in the 
nation, and his wife, Mistress Dolly Madison, was now by 
right of position the ''Lady of the White House." 

There is a good story told about Madison at this time. 
One of the Senators was being shaved in a Washington barber 
shop, the morning after Madison was nominated. The barber 
talked as he shaved, in a w^ay barbers have. It must be re- 
membered that in those days men wore their hair in long 
queues. ''This country is going to ruin, sir," confided the bar- 
ber. "See what elegant Presidents we might have. There 
is Daggett of Connecticut and Stockton of New Jersey. What 
queues they have got, sir ; as big as your wrist and powdered 
every day, like real gentlemen. Such men as this would give 
dignity to the office. But this little Jim Madison, with a queue 
no bigger than a pipe-stem, sir. It is enough to make a man 
forswear his country." 

But little Madison was elected in spite of his pipe-stem 
queue, and by a large majority. He might not have been, if 
all the voters had been barbers. 

Madison as President tried as hard to keep the country 
out of war as he had done while Secretary of State. But it 
could not be done. From taking sailors out of American 
merchant ships, England began to insult our men-of-war, and 
took steps that would ruin our commerce. Matters grew so 
bad that Congress declared war against Great Britain, and on 
June 8, 1 81 2, President Madison signed the declaration of war. 

The history of that war has very little to do with the life 
of the President. It was only in 18 14, when the British 
landed an army and marched on Washington, that the war 
came very near to him. The militia who had gathered were 



68 JAMES MADISON 

sent flying, and Washington lay at the mercy of a foreign foe. 
Then there was a wild coming and going. Madison had 
to flee to save himself from capture. Mrs. Madison, left in 
the White House, was in equal danger. He sent her word 
to flee in time, but to save the Cabinet papers. 

Dolly Madison now showed herself a woman of nerve. 
She got all the papers and the plate, but she would not leave 
till a large portrait of Washington, which was screwed against 
a wall, was secured. The cannon were sounding loudly and 
the British soldiers were near at hand when she got into her 
carriage with the papers, plate and portrait and drove away. 
She had not been gone long before the city swarmed with 
soldiers, and that night all the public buildings were in flames. 

Mrs. Madison spent the night in a little tavern in an apple 
orchard, while a furious rain-storm raged outside. The wind 
was so strong that the apples were flung like musket balls 
against the house. Here the President joined her, but at 
midnight a scared courier rode up and told him that the Brit- 
ish were close on his track. His friends made him go out 
into the storm, and he spent the rest of that night in a 
wretched hovel in the woods. 

The next day word came that the British were leaving, 
and the fugitives made their way back. They reached Wash- 
ington to find the Capitol and the White House heaps of 
blackened ruins. They had gone through an experience 
which no other American President has had anything to match. 

When Mrs. Madison got to the Long Bridge on the way 
back, she found that it was barred at both ends. There was 
an officer there in charge with a ferry boat, but he did not 
know the lady and refused to take her across. Her husband 
had sent her word to go home in disguise, but after begging 
for a while in vain, she had to tell the officer her name. Then 



JAMES MADISON 69 

he ferried her and her carriage across the river, and she made 
her way through the desolate and ash-covered streets to the 
ruins of what had been her home. 

A Httle more than two years later President Madison's 
second term reached its end, and he left Washington for his 
quiet, beautiful home at Montpelier. Here, in his "dear 
library," in taking care of his estate, in generous hospitality, 
and in happy domestic life the scholarly Madison spent the 
remainder of his days. In 1829 he took part in the work of 
the convention to make a new Constitution for Virginia. 
That was his last public work. He died on the 28th of June, 
1836. The delicate scholar had lived to be eighty-five 
years old. ■ 

His beloved wife survived him for thirteen years. She 
had business troubles towards the end. There had been 
losses. But Congress purchased her husband's valuable 
papers, and her difficulties came to an end. Comfort and 
peace lay around her later days. But there is an incident 
which goes to show that she was growing tired of life. One 
of her nieces went to her for sympathy in some slight trouble. 

"My dear," said the old lady, " do not trouble about it. 
There is nothing in tJiis world really worth caring for. Yes." 
she continued, looking intently out of a window, " I who have 
lived so long, repeat to you, there is nothing in this world 
here below worth caring for." 



JAMES MONROE 

THE FIFTH PRESIDENT. 



" AMERICA FOR THE AMERICANS." 

Of all our Presidents of early 
times there is none whose name is 
more familiar to the newspaper 
reader of to-day than that of James 
Monroe. And that is because he 
was the author of a "doctrine." 
"The Monroe Doctrine" stands 
before us in big print at least a dozen 
times a year. Do I hear any one 
ask, who was Monroe, and what was 
his doctrine? I am about to tell 
you who Monroe was. His doc- 
trine, to put it in plain English, 
means, ''America for the Americans." 

When James Monroe was President, the United States 
was not the great nation it is to-day, and some of the hungry 
powers of Europe went prowling about like wolves, thinking 
they might snatch up a bit of America here and there. What 
President Monroe said to them was, in effect, "Keep off If 
you attempt to bite at America you will find a watch-dog here 
ready to bite back." And ever since that day the United 
States has been the watch-dog of America, and more than 
once it has shown its teeth to the hungry wolves of Europe. 

That is what is meant by the "Monroe Doctrine." 
70 




JAMES MONROE. 



JAMES MONROE 



71 



James Monroe had good fighting blood in his veins. He 
had fought by the side of Washington in the Revolution. He 
came of sound old Scotch stock, which had come to Virginia 
a century before he was born. His father was a planter who 
had a fine estate on Monroe Creek, a stream which emptied into 
the Potomac River. It was very near where Washington 

lived and played as a 
child; though he had long 
been fighting against the 
French and Indians when 
James Monroe first 
opened his eyes in his 
father's home, on the i8th 
of April, 1758. 

The boy was not ten 
\ years old when the trou- 
bles with England began. 
No doubt he opened his 
blue eyes with wonder 
^^when he heard loud and 
angry talk about the 
*' Stamp Act" and the 
"Tea Tax." He must 
have picked up a good 
many new ideas about 
liberty and human rights 
in his early school-days. When he was sixteen years old he 
was sent to the famous William and Mary College, where so 
many Virginians then got their education. 

I am afraid the boy must have been greatly disturbed 
in his lessons. Likely he learned some Latin and Greek, but 
he must have picked up a number of things not in the books. 




JAMES MONROE AS ENVOY PURCHASES LOUISIANA 
FROM THE GREAT NAPOLEON. 



72 JAMES MONROE 

There was the Virginia Assembly meeting in the college town 
and talking plain treason, and no doubt he heard them. There 
was Patrick Henry thundering out defiance of England in the 
near town of Richmond. From the north came the echoes 
of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. The whole 
country was like a volcano, spouting fire. 

The fighting blood in James Monroe was warmed up by 
these events. He was a true American, and, young as he 
was, it was hard for him to keep at school while his country 
was at war for freedom. Just after he was eighteen the De- 
claration of Independence was signed. That was more than 
the eager young patriot could stand. He flung his books 
into his desk, said good-bye to his teachers, and rode away 
at full speed for New York, where he took his place bravely 
in the ranks of Washington's army. 

These were dark days for the young republic. The trained 
British soldiers were carrying everything before them. Wash- 
ington's army of volunteers was driven from Long Island 
and from New York. There were fights and retreats at Har- 
lem Heights and White Plains, in which the boy soldier took 
part. Then began that miserable march across New Jersey, 
with the British close upon the heels of the American army. 

Young Monroe must have done well in these fights, for 
he was promoted from a cadet to a lieutenant. But it was 
amid the cold and snows of that famous Christmas night of 
1776, when Washington's ragged army attacked the Hessians 
at Trenton, that the boy soldier won his spurs. History tells 
us of his gallant act: 

" Perceiving that the enemy were endeavoring to erect 
a battery to rake the American lines, he advanced at the head 
of a small detachment, drove the artillery men from the guns, 
and took possession of the pieces." 



JAMES MONROE 73 

The young hero was wounded. A ball hit him in the 
shoulder. But Washington made him a captain for his daring 
deed, and that was some salve for his wound. 

After that we meet with Monroe as an aide-de-camp on 
the staff of Lord Stirling. He was a major now, and fought 
in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth, 
and spent a freezing and starving winter at Valley Forge with 
the army. Washington had a high opinion of the young Vir- 
ginian, born so near his own boyhood playgrounds. He now 
sent him to Virginia to organize a new regiment, of which he 
was to be colonel. 

This proved unlucky for Monroe. Virginia had no more 
men to spare. She had sent Washington so many of her 
sons that she had to keep the few left for home defence. 
Monroe was disappointed. He could not enlist a regiment, 
and he had lost his post in the army. He was still only 
twenty years old when he made up his mind to go back to 
his books. So he began to study law under Thomas Jefferson, 
who was then Governor of Virginia. 

In the years that followed Virginia had its share of the 
war. Arnold and Tarleton and Cornwallis invaded its soil. 
Lafayette came to defend it from its foes, and Colonel Mon- 
roe more than once shut up his law books and hurried to the 
front. And so it was till Washington at Yorktown scooped 
up Cornwallis and his men and put an end to the war. Then 
Monroe opened his books and went at his studies again. 

He studied law, but he did not have much chance to 
practice it. In 1782, when he was only twenty-three, he was 
elected to the Assembly of Virginia and was made a member 
of the Governor's Council. The next year he was elected to 
the Continental Congress. It was then at Annapolis, and he 
got there in time to see a famous historic scene, when George 



74 JAMES MONROE 

Washington came before it to resign his commission as com- 
mander-in-chief of the army of the Revolution. 

Monroe was wide awake to all that went on around him. 
Like Madison and others, he saw that the old Union was fall- 
ing to pieces. It had been all right when there was war to 
hold it together, but when peace came it grew weak and shaky, 
and he did all he could to bring about the convention that 
framed the Constitution of the United States. 

There was another union that young Monroe was inter- 
ested in about this time. Living in New York was an Eng- 
lishman named Kortright, who had been a captain in the 
British army, but became a good American after the war. 
Among his children was a beautiful and accomplished daugh- 
ter named Elizabeth. Monroe met her when the Congress was 
in session at New York, and straightway fell in love with her. 
His marriage with her took place in 1786, and this union was 
a very close and happy one. All the Virginia Presidents 
seem to have found good and loving wives. 

When the Constitution was formed Monroe did not like 
it. He thought it gave too much power to the central gov- 
ernment, and was afraid the President might come to wear a 
crown and act as a king. He helped Patrick Henry fight 
against it in the Virginia convention, while Madison fought 
for it. He was wrong, as he lived to find out. 

In 1790 Monroe was sent by Virginia to the Senate of 
the United States. He belonged to the Anti-Federalist party 
along with Jefferson and many others. This afterward grew 
into the Democratic party. He did not like the bold measures 
of Alexander Hamilton, who took the leading part in organiz- 
ing the new government. Monroe and Madison and Jeffer- 
son and many others feared that Hamilton was trying to put 



JAMES MONROE 75 

a king over this country. Perhaps they were right ; but the 
people would have had something to say about that king. 

In the Senate Monroe opposed many acts of the Govern- 
ment. But for all that President Washington sent him to 
France in 1795 as United States Minister. The great general 
had not forgotten his old liking for his young soldier comrade. 

Have you ever read the terrible story of the French Rev- 
olution — how the mob ruled Paris and France, and the guillo- 
tine cut off the heads of thousands, among them the king and 
the queen ? This dreadful knife was still at its bloody work 
when Monroe reached Paris. Every day blood flowed and 
heads fell. But the terrible Robespierre was dead and the 
dark clouds were beginning to break. 

It was a sight to see the handsome young American, as 
he stood before the National Convention, with his frank blue 
eyes, his fair hair, and his tall and erect figure, looking with 
the courage of a soldier at that dread tribunal which had dared 
to condemn a king and queen to death. 

But Monroe got a warm welcome, and the flags of the 
two nations were twined together, to show the close union of 
the two republics. He looked upon those men, not as mur- 
derers, but as the makers of liberty, and he made a speech that 
was full of admiration for France. It made England very 
angry and was not liked by the Government at home, and the 
new minister, who had been guilty of talking too much, was 
soon called home ag^ain. 

One fine thing he did. Lafayette, the friend of Wash- 
ington, was then in prison in Austria. His wife, the Mar- 
chioness of Lafayette, was in prison in Paris and might be 
sent to the guillotine any day. Monroe sent his wife to see her 
and she had a pathetic interview with the sad prisoner. It is 
said that she was to have been executed that same afternoon 



76 JAMES MONROE 

and that the visit of Mrs. Monroe saved her life. She was 
set at liberty the next day. So much Monroe did for the old 
comrade by whose side he had fought in the Revolution. 

Soon after his return home Monroe was elected Governor 
of Virginia. This high ofhce he held until 1802, when Presi- 
dent Jefferson sent him to France again, this time on a very 
important mission. The great territory of Louisiana, lying 
west of the Mississippi River, had just before been given by 
Spain to France — to please Napoleon, who could have nearly 
anything he asked for. One part of it the American people 
wanted. New Orleans and the lower Mississippi. Monroe was 
sent to try and buy this part of Louisiana from Napoleon. 

He got to Paris just at the right time. Napoleon wanted 
money to fight England with. He was afraid that, when war 
broke out again, as it soon would, the British fleets and armies 
would rob him of his Mississippi lands. He had better sell 
them for money now than lose them for nothing soon. So 
when Monroe and Livingston, the American Minister at Paris, 
offered $2,500,000 for the island of New Orleans, word came 
back from Napoleon that they could have the whole vast terri- 
tory of Louisiana for J 15,000,000. 

This offer almost took their breaths away. They had no 
authority to buy the great tract. But they could not wait to 
send to America to ask permission. That would take weeks 
or months, and Napoleon might change his mind. So they 
took the law in their own hands and closed the bargain then 
and there. 

That w^as one of the great things in Monroe's life. The 
President and Congress were glad enough to make the bar- 
gain good ; and one of the great events of 1903 and 1904 is 
the grand ** Louisiana Purchase Exposition," held at St. 
Louis in memory of this splendid act of wisdom. 



JAMES MONROE 77 

Monroe stayed in Europe till 1808 on political business 
with England and Spain, and came home much disappointed, 
because he could do nothing satisfactory with those two 
countries. A treaty he made with England the Senate would 
not accept, because it said nothing about taking seamen from 
our ships. 

Honors awaited him at home. In 181 1 he was again 
elected Governor of Virginia. Soon after that President 
Madison chose him for Secretary of State. Then the war 
with England broke out and he had his hands more than full. 
The President trusted everything to him, and he had more to 
do with carrying on that war than Madison had. After the 
capture of Washington by the British he became Secretary of 
war, also. He was just the man for the place, for the Gov- 
ernment needed spirit just then. 

The Government had no money and no credit. Monroe 
came to its aid, and pledged his fortune to help it in its need. 
He took hold of the war with a strong hand and proposed to 
make the army a hundred thousand strong. When England 
sent her great fleet and army to capture New Orleans, Monroe 
sent ringing orders to the southwest. He was now the sol- 
dier again, not the politician. 

"■ Hasten your militia to New Orleans," he wrote. "Do 
not wait for this Government to arm them ; put all the arms 
you have into their hands ; let every man bring his rifle with 
him ; we shall see you paid." 

That was the kind of talk to inspire Jackson. The rifle- 
men of the west rushed under "Old Hickory" to the cotton- 
bale ramparts, and New Orleans was saved. 

Monroe served as Secretary of State till March 4, 181 7, 
when he gave up the office to take that of President of the 
United States. He had been elected by the Democratic party, 



78 /AMES MONROE 

with one hundred and eighty-three electoral votes against 
thirty-four for his opponent. 

For eight years he was President, and they were the 
quietest in American politics any President has ever known. 
There were no party disputes, and it was called the *'era of 
good feeling." When he was re-elected in 1820 there was 
no opposition. He was the only American President, except 
Washington, who had this wonderful fortune. Only one 
electoral vote was cast against him, and that was by an 
eccentric member from Pennsylvania, who said that nobody 
but Washington should go in with an unanimous vote. 

Soon after his first election Monroe made a great tour of 
the country. He wore the old uniform and cocked hat of the 
Revolution, and the people, especially the old soldiers, went 
wild over him. He went as far northwest as Detroit, and 
that was thought a great journey in those davs of stage-coach 
travel. 

The great events of Monroe's term were the purchase of 
Florida from Spain, the Missouri Compromise, and the Mon- 
roe Doctrine. This celebrated "Doctrine" was given in the 
message to Congress of December, 1823. The nations of 
Europe were talking of helping Spain to get back her Ameri- 
can colonies, which had just become free. They expected to 
pay themselves by keeping part of those colonies. But when 
Monroe told them, with a fine show of politeness, that if they 
tried to meddle in America they would have the United States 
to deal with, they backed down. Since that time the Monroe 
Doctrine has stood like a wall of defence between America 
and Europe. 

In 1825 Monroe went home to live in his beautiful man- 
sion at Oak Hill, in Loudoun County, Virginia. This house, we 
are told, was planned for him by Jefferson, who also gave him 



JAMES MONROE 79 

the nails to build it with. It was a handsome brick building, 
with a wide portico and great columns. Around it was a 
grove of splendid oak trees. 

His life here was happy and restful, kindly and sincere. 
There was plenty to occupy him. He had a large corre- 
spondence, was a Regent of the University of Virginia, and 
President of the Virginia Constitutional Convention. But 
sorrow and trouble came to him. His wife, who was still a 
handsome and charming woman, died in 1830, throwing him 
into the deepest grief His fortune became so reduced that 
he was in danger of losing his home at Oak Hill. His wife's 
death had left this home so sad and lonely that he went to 
live with one of his daughters in New York. Here he died 
on the Fourth of July, 1831, the third of our Presidents to die 
on Independence Day. 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 

THE SIXTH PRESIDENT. 



SCHOLAR, DIPLOMAT, STATESMAN. 

Many, many years ago, a grave- 
faced little child, five or six years old, 
might have been seen in Boston, look- 
ing with startled eyes on the red- 
coated soldiers as they marched 
through the streets ; or listening in 
his father's house to the loud talk, 
that he did not understand, about 
^England and King George and the 
Tea Party and other subjects of an- 
ger. A few years later this boy and 
his mother climbed to a hill-top in 
Braintree, w^here they then lived, and 
from there saw a terrible sight, for red flames and dark smoke 
were bursting from the warships in the harbor, and the roar 
of cannon came sounding far across the water. They saw 
great sheets of fire mount high into the air, for the wooden 
houses of Charlestown were burning furiously, and on Bunker 
Hill, ten miles away, the flash of shots could be seen. The 
first great battle in the American Revolution was being fought, 
and the British were learning that the Yankee farmers could 
fight. 

After the British left Boston, this little fellow, still only 
nine years old, used to ride on horseback into the city to 
80 




JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



ll 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 8i 

bring back to his mother the latest news. It was twenty-two 
miles going and coming, which was a pretty long ride for a 
boy of that age. 

The boy we are speaking of w^as the oldest son of 
John Adams, the greats patriot, who was then in the Con- 
gress at Philadelphia, helping with the famous Declaration 
of Independence. The boy had been born on July 1 1, 1767, 
in the old Adams home at Braintree. When he was baptized 
his mother's great-grandfather, John Ouincy, lay dying, and 
the child was given his name. So he is known to us as John 
Quincy Adams. A great destiny awaited him, for, like his 
father, he w^as to become President of the United States. 

A grave, thoughtful little boy he was, one who would 
rather hear the old folks talk than play with his schoolmates, 
and who was to do the work of a man long before he ceased 
being a boy. Like his father, he was honest in grain, and 
like his father, he w^as fearless and obstinate. To the day of 
his death, nothing could scare him, and nothing could turn 
him from his course. He was a true son .of his father. 

The boy began life in the great world early. He was 
just past ten years of age when his father was sent by his 
country to France, and took him along. A long and stormy 
voyage it was ; and on the way they were chased by a British 
war-vessel, and had a desperate battle with a privateer, in 
which his father wanted to help the sailors fight, but the cap- 
tain would not let him. 

The ship got safe through all this, and they came at 
length to Paris. Here little John was sent to school and put 
to studying French. He learned a good deal more, for when 
they came back, a year and a half later, we find the boy giv- 
ing lessons in English to the French ambassador, who was 
on board the ship. He was a severe teacher, too. He would 

6 



82 JOHM QlilNCV ADAMS 

stand no idleness. And he showed so much learning that the 
ambassador stared at him in wonder. The boy of twelve was 
more than half a man already. 

" He is a better teacher than you are," said the ambas- 
sador to Mr. Adams. 

They did not stay home long. In three months John 
Adams was sent back again, and once more he took his son 
along. This time the boy saw more of the world, for his 
father traveled from Paris to Holland and met many of the 
leading people. Young John Quincy must have shown him- 
self wonderfully bright, for he was in public service himself 
before he was fourteen years old. Francis Dana, envoy from 
the United States to Russia, took him as his private secretary.. 

I have not read in history of any other boy in so high an 
office while so young. But the youthful secretary did his work 
like a master. He stayed in Russia over a year, and then left 
and came back himself, traveling through Sweden and Den- 
mark, and keeping his eyes wide open for all there was to be 
seen. Then he went to school again at the Hague in Holland. 
He had been getting his schooling in bits all along, but the 
school of courts was one where there was much to learn. 

Soon he had other important work to do. The Revolu- 
tion was over and his father and Franklin and Jefferson were 
chosen to make a treaty of peace with Great Britain. The 
bright boy became one of their secretaries, and had his share 
in drawing up the famous paper which settled the indepen- 
dence of the United States. 

What do you think of a boy like this ? He was just a 
little over sixteen, an age when boys are often in the thick of 
their school life. Yet for years he had been doing the work 
of an experienced man. Certainly history does not tell of 
many boys like him. 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 



83 



In 1785, before John Quincy was eighteen, his father was 
appointed Minister to England. The boy had then Hved 
seven years in Europe. He Hked foreign travel ; he liked the 
life in courts ; it v/ould be pleasant to see and talk with the 
famous men of EnHand. And his mother had come to 
London, which made that city like home to him. Here was 
a charming prospect, which 
most boys would have 
jumped to take. 

But John Quincy Adams 
was not a boy of that sort 
He knew he had only hal ; 
an education. And when 
his parents gave him the 
choice to stay in London ^^^ 
with them or go to Amer- K 
ica and enter Harvard Col- ^ 
lege, it did not take him - 
long to decide. He felt 
that he had his own way 
to make in the world, and 
to loiter about London was 
not the way to prepare for 
that, no matter how pleas- 
ant it mig^ht be. So home the old south church, boston, in this 

^ church GREAT MEETINGS WERE held IN REV- 

he came, entered colleQ;"e, olutionary times, the "boston tea partv 

^ . ■, ■^ FOLLOWED one OF THESE MEETINGS. 

and graduated with honor 

in 1787, then studied law, and began to practice when he 

was twenty-three years old. 

The learned bov was a man at last and was launched in 
business. He had seen more of the world than most men 
ever see. He had a deep training in public affairs, and this 




84 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 

he soon showed by writing able poHtical papers, which were 
much read in America and Europe. He did not put his name 
to them, but it became known that he was the writer, and 
they showed such fine knowledge and judgment in political 
affairs that President Washington sent him abroad again as 
Minister to Holland. 

It was now 1794. He was twenty-seven years old. The 
storm of the French Revolution was spreading all over 
Europe. French armies were marching through Holland, and 
the ruler of that country, with all the European ministers, fled 
before the conquerors. Adams stuck to his post. He had a 
hard task, between the French party on one side and the 
Dutch party on the other ; but he kept his head level and 
steered between them. Neither side succeeded in making a 
tool of him. 

Soon after that he went to England. Here he met new 
difficulties, for the British court treated him as if he was the 
American minister, and tried to get him to commit himself to 
some foolish act. But his good sense carried him safe through 
all their plots. 

The youthful diplomat, however, got caught in another 
fashion. Joshua Johnson, the American Consul at London, 
had with him his daughter, Louise Catharine Johnson, a hand- 
some and accomplished girl, whose charms were too much 
even for steady-going John Quincy Adams. He fell in love 
with her, and she with him, and in July, 1797, the happy 
lovers were married. It was a marriage that brought him 
the deepest happiness throughout his future life. 

New honors were now showered rapidly upon the keen- 
witted diplomat. President Washington appointed him 
Minister to Portugal, but before he set out the post was 
changed, and he was ordered to Prussia. This was at the end 




PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1789 TO 1829 



^^Andrew 
/JACKSON 



/AARTiF~n 
" BURENr: 

&57- 184-1 n- 




JAME5 K.Polk 

1645 - I&49 



2ACHARY ( 
TAYLOR 1 

1849-1850 Ji. 



PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1829 TO 185( 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 85 

of Washington's term. John Adams succeeded as President. 
What was to be done ? Was it right for him to keep his son 
in ofhce? What would the people say? The son felt the 
same scruples and wanted to resign. He would have done so 
but for Washington, who insisted that the young Minister had 
well earned his post and must not be cut short in his career. 

But John Quincy had a queer trouble in getting into 
Berlin. When he got to the gates of that city he was stopped 
by the lieutenant on guard and asked who he was and what 
he wanted. He told the officer that he came from the 
United States. . 

" The United States? Where is that? I never heard 
of such a place." 

One of the soldiers had to tell the lieutenant where the 
United States was, and then the new Minister was allowed to 
go in. I hardly think any American would be stopped to-day 
at the gates of Berlin with that odd question. Adams remained 
abroad until his father's term was near its end, when he was 
recalled home, and settled back to his law business again. 

Now let us run along faster in his life. His political 
career in America began in 1802, when he was elected to the 
Senate of Massachusetts. The next year he was sent to the 
Senate of the United States. He was a Federalist and the 
Democrats were in power, and things were made lively for 
him. He had to fight his political foes, and when he sup- 
ported some of Jefferson's measures his own party bitterly 
blamed him. He was between two fires, and it took all his 
sturdy honesty and obstinate spirit to hold his own between 
the opposite forces. 

He supported the Louisiana Purchase, which his own 
party opposed. He supported other acts which he thought 
good ones, and they thought bad o'nes. The worst of all was 



86 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 

the Embargo Act, which cut off commerce with England. 
When Adams voted for that the Federalists were wild with 
anger. They called him "traitor," and "renegade," and 
nominated his successor to the Senate in an insulting way. 
Adams was not the man to stay where he was not wanted, 
and at once he resigned. 

This was in 1808. On the 4th of March of the next year 
James Madison became President, and two days later he 
nominated Adams for Minister to Russia. . And he sent him 
there, too, in spite of all his enemies in the Senate, who tried 
their best to stop him. 

Minister Adams spent four years and a half in St. Peters- 
burg. They were some of the stormiest years the world has 
ever known. Napoleon was trampling all Europe under his 
feet. While he was there the great invasion of Russia took 
place. There was the march of the mighty French army, the 
burning of Moscow, and the terrible march back of the French 
army — what was left of it. 

And while Adams was in Russia there was war also at 
home — three years of war with England. When the treaty 
of peace was made in 1814 John Quincy Adams was one of 
those who made it. After the treaty he went to Paris, and 
stayed there during the famous "hundred days" after Napo- 
leon returned from exile to Etba and fought his last fight at 
Waterloo. 

He had left his wife at St. Petersburg, the capital of 
Russia, and she started by herself for Paris while all this was 
going on. It was a hard and dangerous journey. At one 
place the carriage was buried in a snow-drift, with night com- 
ing on, and the peasants around had to be roused up to dig 
the travelers out. Then there was much talk of murder and 
robbery on the road, from the rough fellows the war had set 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 87 

adrift. When France was reached the roads were found full 
of soldiers, rushing to Paris to meet the emperor. Mrs. 
Adams reached that city on March 21, 18 15, just after Napo- 
leon had got there. There must have been thrilling sights to 
see, in those desperate days. 

At this time Adams received the highest diplomatic honor 
this country could give. He was appointed United States 
Minister to England. Washington had said that he was on 
the road to ''the highest rank in the American diplomatic 
service." He had now reached it, for the ministry to London 
was viewed as the highest in Europe. 

He came home in 181 7 to a still greater post. A new 
President, James Monroe, was in the chair, and he had chosen 
the brilliant statesman and diplomatist for his Secretary of 
State. Step by step Adams was going up. 

If any of my readers have ever been in the splendid city 
of Washington as it is to-day, they cannot well picture to 
themselves the Washington to which John Quincy Adams 
came in 18 17. He had been used to the beautiful capitals of 
Europe, and this ugly, dreary, comfortless place made his 
soul sick. He spoke of it as ''this miserable desert, this 
scene of desolation and horror." It was still just rising out 
of the ashes which the British had left and must have been a 
cheerless place. 

But he went to work all the same. There were many 
questions to handle. The greatest of these was that of keep- 
ing America out of European politics and keeping Europe out 
of America. Adams had his share in the " Monroe Doctrine," 
of which you have just read.- Some say that he had as much 
to do with it as Monroe himself Two years before Monroe's 
message was written Secretary Adams had told the Russian 
minister that the United States would not consent to any 



88 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 

European control on American soil. That was the ''Monroe 
Doctrine" in brief. 

In 1824 a new President was to be elected. Four men 
were named, Andrew Jackson, the great soldier ; John Quincy 
Adams, the great diplomatist ; Henry Clay, the great states- 
man ; and William H. Crawford, the late Secretary of the 
Treasury. Jackson was the popular favorite and got the 
largest number of votes. But he did not get a majority of 
them all, and the election was thrown into the House of Rep- 
resentatives. This chose Adams, who thus became President 
of the United States. 

The new President was a very busy man when in office. 
But we are told he took a great deal of exercise. When he 
was at home in Quincy he thought little of walking to Boston, 
seven miles away, before breakfast. In Washington he was 
one of the first men up in the city, and the rising sun often 
saw him already at work in his library. He was an expert 
swimmer and was very fond of bathing. Every morning in 
the summer he was in the habit of plunging into the Potomac 
and swimming about, with all the sportive spirit of a boy. 

Adams, like his father before him, was in office only four 
years. He was a hard worker and an able President, but he 
had very little of the art of the politician. There was no soft- 
ness in his manner, and he made more enemies than he made 
friends. Mrs. Adams was a woman of fine social manners 
and showed much grace and dignity in her high position. But 
the friends she made were lost by her husband's coldness of 
manner. So when the next election came round he got fewer 
votes than before, and Jackson was elected President by a 
large majority. 

John Quincy Adams did not stay moping at home. He 
did what no other President has ever done ; he went back to 



JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 89 

Congress. He was elected to the House of Representatives 
in 1830, and remained thereuntil his death in 1848. And he 
played a prominent part there. The great slavery contest 
I came on and Adams made himself the champion of the Anti- 
Slavery party. He was not a handsome man, with his bald 
head and short figure. He was not a graceful orator. His 
voice was high and shrill, and had no rich, deep tones. But 
he had something to say, and he said it in a way that won 
him the title of " the old man eloquent." 

For years he kept the slavery question alive. The 
Southern members tried in vain to stop his voice, but nothing 
could check him. Hundreds of anti-slavery petitions were 
sent to Congress. Nobody but Adams was ready to present 
them, but he continued to do so in spite of all the anger he 
met and the savage clamor around him. Those were days 
when it needed a strong man in Congress to face the passion- 
ate Southern members. Adams was that man. 

In 1846 a stroke of paralysis came to warn the old man 
that death was at hand. But he kept at his post. He had 
kept a diary for years, and the last words in it were these : 

"A stout heart, a clear conscience, and never despair." 

He was in his seat in Congress on February 21, 1848. 
He rose, with a paper in his hand, to address the Speaker, 
when he suddenly fell to the floor. He was picked up insen- 
sible. Paralysis had seized him again. When he came to 
himself he said, ''This is the end of earth. I am content." 

They were his last words. He died two days later. 
They buried him under the church portal at Quincy, where 
the bodies of his father and mother lay. 



ANDREW JACKSON 

THE SEVENTH PRESIDENT. 



"OLD HICKORY." 




of. 



Every boy and girl should be 
interested in the life and adventures 
of the famous Andrew Jackson, for 
his career was the most exciting of 



those of any of the presidents, un- 
less it be that of our first and 
greatest President, George Wash- 
ington. Like most boys who lived 
in the new States of the South and 
West, Jackson had exciting adven- 
tures with Indians and with soldiers. 
And like many boys he had to work 
hard and do a man's work when he 
Vv^as still quite young. 
Andrew Jackson was just such a boy as we like to read 
His father and mother came from Ireland when George 
III, was King of England. This was the king, you know, 
with whom the American colonists had so much trouble, that 
they determined to fight for their liberty, and our hero was 
still quite young when the War of Independence was being 
fought. His father and mother landed at Charleston, and 
went out into the wilderness nearly one hundred and sixty 
miles, and built a log hut on a stream which ran into a creek 

near the boundary line between North and South Carolina. 
90 



ANDREW JACKSON. 



ANDREW JACKSON 9i 

Mr. Jackson had just planted and raised his first crop 
when he was taken sick and died, leaving the mother and two 
little boys, the older brothers of Andrew, for he was born 
only a few weeks after his father's death, in 1767, in a rough 
log cabin in which there was very little furniture. A few kind 
neighbor women came in and brought food and clothing for the 
poor mother and her fatherless children. Little did his mother 
expect that this little boy, born in her lonely log cabin out in 
the wilderness, peopled by wandering Indians who would 
come to the door and look in, would become a famous Presi- 
dent of these great United States. 

The father of the family being dead, the home had to be 
given up, and the mother and her three children went to a rela- 
tive's house to live. Here she and her boys did such work 
as they could to help pay for the food they ate and the clothes 
that were given them. In this way Andrew, or "Andy," as 
people called him, grew up, and at the age of five or six years 
went to a wretched school held in a log cabin out in the 
woods. Here he learned to read, but he never became a 
good speller. His writing was never good, but he learned 
enough of arithmetic to do ordinary sums. 

Andrew was not an attractive-looking boy, as you may 
imagine, with his running wild in the woods and having no 
father to train and control him. He was so rough in his 
ways, and got into so many fights with his fellows, that most 
people thought him a very bad boy. His good mother, how- 
ever, never gave up hope of making a noble man of him, and 
by her prayers and gentle guidance she made her influence felt. 
It showed itself in many ways in later years. The boy who 
swore and used bad language in his youth, became later in life 
a devout Christian, and learned to revere the memory of the 
good mother who had endured so many hardships for his sake. 



92 



ANDRE W J A CKSON 



When the Declaration of Independence was signed An- 
drew Jackson was only nine years old. As you know, the 
War of Independence was fought in the South as well as in 
the North. There were many 
people in the South who be- 
lieved that King George 
should have his way, and that 
the colonists had no ridit to 




THE INDIAN CHIEF, WEATHERSFORD, WHO LED THE CREEKS AGAINST THE U. S. FORCES 
IN WAR OF 1812, AFTER A STORMY INTERVIEW WITH GENERAL JACKSON, SURRENDERS. 

oppose him. These people were called Tories. But there 
were many others who believed that George III was a tyrant, 




GENERAL ZACHARY TAYLOR'S GREAT VICTORY AT RESACA DE LA PALMA 

A famous \i, lory was Resai a de la Palnia. where, with 2. co men. General laylor defeated the Mexican Arniv of ^ooo men. 
Ihis picture sliowsone of his brave ofiicers leading a charge. 



ANDREW JACKSON 93 

and that the colonies should be free and independent of Eng- 
land. These were called Patriots. 

When the British General Tarleton and his Tory horse- 
men laid waste the country, Andy's hrother Hugh was among 
the Patriots who went to meet them, and he was killed by them 
in the most cruel way. When Andy heard of this he felt 
that he would like to avenge his brother's death ; but he was 
too young to take up the sword and fight. His mother took 
the children and fled to a safer place, and Andy was placed 
in a family in Charlotte to earn his board doing servant's work. 

He grew very rapidly, and when he was fourteen years 
old he \yas almost a man in size. He was as strong and bold 
as many men. When the British forces came that way and 
captured the town, they made Andy and his brother Robert 
prisoners, and one of the officers wished to make Andy his 
servant. One day he ordered the boy to clean his muddy 
boots, but Andy who was full of spirit and courage, for he 
never was afraid of anybody, boldly replied, " I am a prisoner 
of war, not your servant." 

The officer flew into a passion, drew his sword, and aimed 
a blow at the head of the helpless boy. Fortunately he did 
not kill him, but he gave him wounds on hands and face 
which he carried as long as he lived. The officer then tried 
to make Andrew's brother Robert do what Andrew refused 
to do, but Robert, with the same spirit, said that he would not 
clean the officer's boots. The brutal officer then struck him 
also with his sword, giving him a wound from the effects of 
which he afterwards died. 

The two boys, while still suff'ering from their wounds, 
were taken ofl" to prison with a lot of grown men, and were 
not given enough food to eat. They would have died had 
not their mother, moved by her love for her boys, hunted them 



94 . ANDREW JACKSON 

out and succeeded in getting the British to let her take them 
away. Robert died soon after, and Andrew became very sick, 
and for a long time his mother thought that she would lose 
him, too. It is sad to say that this dear mother, who had done 
so much for her boys, was herself taken sick with the disease 
which her sons had, and after a very severe illness she died, 
leaving Andrew, a boy of fourteen years, all alone in the 
world, without a father, mother, sister or brother, without any 
money, and with very few friends. 

He started to learn the saddler's trade, but did not stick 
at it long. In fact, the death of his parents left him free from 
any restraint or home influence, and open to all bad counsels. 
He became a very wild young man, attended the horse-races, 
gambled, and did almost everything which a boy should not 
do. No one could expect that a boy like this would ever come 
to any good, and such boys seldom do. They are more likely 
to become bad and often criminal men. Andrew Jackson 
often spoke afterward of his escape from vice. 

Fortunately for him, he soon learned that a young man 
who followed such a life as he was leading would be despised 
and shunned by all respectable persons, and he resolved to 
do better. One thing he undertook was to teach school. 
You may be surprised that a boy who had gone to school as 
little as Andrew Jackson had would attempt to teach others ; 
but he could read a little, write a little, and do small sums in 
arithmetic, and the teachers in those days did not have to 
know much. 

A little later he decided that he would study law, and he 
used what little money he had saved to go to a small town in 
North Carolina, where he found a lawyer who was willing to 
take him into his office. There he stayed two years studying 
law, or rather pretending to study, for you know that a young 






ANDREW JACKSON 95 

man who had led such a wild life as Andrew had could not 
very easily keep his mind at his books for a very long time. 
But it was like teaching, one did not need to know much law 
in those days to be a lawyer. 

Andrew was now a young man ,of twenty- two years of 
age. He had spent most of his life in North Carolina, had 
taught school, had been a clerk in a store, and had studied 
law. He was bold, daring, and even reckless, and was very 
fond of adventure. He was not satisfied to settle down in 
North Carolina, but wanted to go farther west, where there 
were better chances for young men. So we find him crossing 
the Alleghany Mountains on a journey of nearly five hundred 
miles through wild forests and wildernesses in which only the 
Indians had traveled, and finally coming to a settlement on 
the banks of the Cumberland River where now is the city of 
Nashville. Here he hung up his sign a-s a lawyer. Lawyers 
must have been scarce there, for he was soon elected to a 
position as the public prosecutor of that district. 

There is an interesting story told of an adventure he had 
while on the way to Nashville with a company of nearly one 
hundred people, who traveled together as a protection against 
the Indians. One night, after they had had a long march, 
and every one was very tired, they made a camp in what 
appeared to be a safe place, and the women and children crept 
into the tents and were soon asleep. The men wrapped them- 
selves in blankets and slept out on the ground with their feet 
to the fire, as men do who camp out at night. Sentinels had 
been placed to watch the camp. 

Andrew did not lie down as soon as the rest, and as he 
was smoking his pipe by the fire he noticed that owls seemed 
to be hooting in the trees about him. Then he heard close by 
a louder hoot than the rest. He immediately became suspicious 



96 ANDREW JACKSON 

that something was wrong, and that perhaps there w^ere 
Indians about him. He quietly aroused the men near by and 
whispered in their ears, "There are Indians all around us. I 
have heard them in every direction. They mean to attack us ' 
before daybreak." Quietly they broke up their camp and 
moved away. 

A company of hunters who were in the neighborhood 
happened to come to the deserted camp and went to sleep 
there, just before daybreak the Indians attacked the camp 
and only one of the hunters escaped, but Andrew Jackson and 
his party got away, and none of them were lost. 

As I have said, Andrew Jackson began the practice of law 
in Nashville, and his business as public prosecutor was to see 
that robbers and thieves and murderers were punished. This 
was not at all a popular thing for him to do. In those wild 
times it was very common for men to carry revolvers and 
hunting-knives, and to use them, too. Even in the court- 
house men would not hesitate to use these weapons if they 
became angry. Besides, in going from one place to another 
to attend court Jackson was in danger of meeting some of 
these people whom he had tried for their crimes. But he was 
a fearless man, and just the one to know what to do ; so he 
did not let that stop him. He had many hair-breadth escapes 
in his journeys from one place to another. Wherever he 
camped at night he w^as always on the alert for fear that 
Indians or desperadoes would attack him, and by his courage 
and caution he escaped all danger in that wild country. 

During the years that Andrew Jackson lived in Tennes- 
see he showed his thrift by purchasing large tracts of land and 
selling off small farms to settlers. In this way he made a 
great deal of money and became what people then thought to 
be rich. 



ANDREW JACKSON 97 

The territory of Tennessee, in which our hero had already 
gone through many adventures, finally had enough people in 
it to make a State ; so a Constitution was prepared, and 
in June, 1796, Tennessee came into the Union as the six- 
teenth State. Andrew Jackson was chosen as its first repre- 
sentative to Congress. He rode on horseback all the way to 
Philadelphia, where Congress was then in session. Just think 
of traveling eight hundred miles on horseback to go to Con- 
gress ! But in those days people did singular things, just as 
they do now. 

His appearance at the time he came to Philadelphia as a 
member of Congress is thus described : "A tall, lank, uncouth- 
looking personage, with lots of hair around his face, and a 
queue down his back tied with an eel skin, his dress singular, 
his manner and deportment those of a rough backwoodsman." 
You can imagine from this description just how he looked, and 
we are not surprised that no one there ever expected that this 
odd-looking westerner would ever be heard of again ; but in 
this every one was mistaken. 

At this time General George Washington was completing 
his second term as President of the United States, and every- 
body spoke of him as the good President. Congress wished 
to express their great admiration for him, and a committee 
was appointed to tell General Washington how much they 
thought of him. Andrew Jackson, who had led such a rough 
life, did not have the respect and regard for this great man 
that we would think he should have, and he objected to their 
speaking of Washington as wise, firm and patriotic. He was 
one of the few men in the country who did not respect and 
revere Washington. But that did not matter. General 
Washington was a great man, and so was Andrew Jackson in 

7 



98 ANDREW JACKSON 

his own way. No doubt, you and I admire George Washing- 
ton more than we do Andrew Jackson, and yet each one was 
a patriotic citizen, and did what he thought was right for his 
country. 

Andrew Jackson was very popular in his own State, and 
what he did in Congress was so highly thought of that he was 
a little later elected to the Senate of the United States. At 
that time John Adams was President and Thomas Jefferson 
Vice-President.. Very likely he found the Senate too prim 
and dignified a place for him. It was much too formal and 
respectable. At any rate he soon left it and went back to 
Tennessee, where he was soon after chosen a judge of the 
Supreme Court. Andrew Jackson must have changed very 
greatly from his boyhood ways to have the highest honors of 
his State thus given to him. 

I will not tell you of all the things Andrew Jackson 
did while serving in Congress or acting as one of the high 
officials of his native State. Many things that he did none of 
us would approve of The people in those days did not think 
it was a bad thing to fight duels, to gamble, and to have 
horse races. We all know how wrong it is, and people who 
do such things are not considered to be of the genteel class, 
nor are they much admired ; but then things were very dif- 
ferent. Andrew Jackson, if he were living in the twentieth 
century, could not lead such a life as he did and win the 
respect of the people. But as he did not have the advantages 
that we have we should not judge him too severely. 

Andrew Jackson proved himself to be an able and daring 
soldier more than once in his life. You may remember, if you 
have read your history, that in 1813 or 1814 the Creek Indians 
and other Indians of the North rose in arms, determined to 
kill the settlers between Florida and the Great Lakes. They 



ANDREW JACKSON 99 

took a fort called Fort Mimms and murdered all the people in it, 
men, women and children. Jackson at once began to raise troops 
with which to invade the country. With an army of 2000 men 
he pushed his way through the wilderness, and reached the 
camp of the Indians near the centre of Alabama, where there 
were nearly 900 warriors with plenty of arms and ammunition. 

Jackson immediately attacked the Indians, who were pro- 
tected by forts and fought desperately. The troops fought 
their way into the forts, where no mercy was shown to the 
Indians, nearly all of them being killed. The few that 
remained sought Jackson's camp and begged for mercy. This 
was a very bloody war, but there was never any trouble with 
Indians in that part of the country afterward. 

At this time, you may remember, the United States had its 
second war with England. One of the plans of the British 
was to capture New Orleans, which, as you know, is an im- 
portant city situated at the mouth of the Mississippi River. 
They thought, if they once got possession of this, it would be 
easy to march up the Mississippi Valley and take possession 
of the western country. Andrew Jackson's success with the 
Indians had made him very popular, and he was appointed a 
general and ordered to fight the British. He collected a force 
of soldiers with which to march to New Orleans and defend it 
against the British soldiers. 

The British had sent a fleet of sixty ships, which carried 
1,000 great guns and 10,000 soldiers, and these were men 
who had fought many battles in Europe and were thought to 
be some of the best soldiers in the world. They had also well 
trained generals to command them. General Jackson had 
a force of only 4,000 or 5,000 men. There were no forts to 
protect the city, but there were plenty of cotton-bales on the 
wharves. These Jackson thought would make an excellent 
iLcrc. 



loo ANDREW JACKSON 

fort ; so he had the cotton-bales piled up on the side of the 
city toward which the British would march. The British used 
sugar hogsheads for the same purpose. 

When Jackson came to place his soldiers he found he had 
only 3,000 men who could handle a gun. No one thought 
that a few thousand untrained backwoodsmen would be a 
match for 10,000 British soldiers with their fine guns and 
splendid training ; but the Americans were used to fighting 
the Indians, and were not easily frightened. Besides, they 
were all splendid shots with the rifle. The British made three 
desperate attacks upon the forts, but each time they were 
driven off. They left the ground behind them covered with 
their dead and wounded. 

While the battle was fiercest, General Jackson walked 
among his soldiers, encouraging his men, and saying, "Stand 
to your guns. Don't waste your ammunition, and see that 
every shot tells. Let us finish the business to-day." The busi- 
ness was finished that day, for the British were terribly beaten, 
and after that they had great respect for the American soldiers. 

When the battle of New Orleans was fought there were no 
ocean steamers carrying letters to and from England ; there 
was no telegraph or cable under the sea to bring or take mes- 
sages, as there is now. You know it takes only a few moments 
of time to send a long message to London ; but then it took a 
considerable time. At the very time that the battle of New 
Orleans was being fought a treaty of peace had already been 
signed between the representatives of the United States and 
England across the ocean. It took weeks for sailing vessels 
to bring communications to this country in those days. Had 
there been a telegraph the message would have reached 
Washington and been telegraphed to New Orleans, and the 
battle would never have taken place. 



ANDREW JACKSON xoi 

You can imagine what a hero Andrew Jackson became 
after this great victory. The way he had put an end to the 
war with the Indians and driven the British away from New 
Orleans gave him fame, and he became known all over the 
country as a hero and a soldier. 

Andrew Jackson had thus made himself famous, and in 
1824, and again in 1828, when the time for the election of the 
President came, one of the great parties, which we now know 
as the Democratic party, asked him to be their candidate for 
President. He was elected in 1828 to succeed John Quincy 
Adams, who, although a good President, was not a popular one. 

Andrew Jackson was then a hero in the eyes of the 
people. He was very different from any man who had been 
President before him. All the other Presidents had had 
opportunites of getting a good education. The Adamses had 
been educated in college, and had the advantage of good 
home training. George Washington had the careful training 
which a good father and mother could give him, and had a 
good home with pleasant surroundings. Andrew Jackson, on 
account of his early life, believed that the Presidents should 
live much as common people live, and should avoid all appear- 
ance of trying to imitate kings or emperors. He made a 
good President, and was honest and true, if he was plain- 
spoken and not very courtly. He would not allow people to 
have their own way, unless he thought it was the right way. 

Although he was born in the South, and believed that the 
people of the South were right in many of their wishes, yet, when 
the people of one of the Southern States thought that they 
could withdraw from the United States and become an inde- 
pendent State, and that they could refuse to obey the laws of 
the United States, he gave them to understand very soon that 
he was the President, and that the laws must be obeyed. 



I02 ANDREW JACKSON 

Again, in many ways he showed that he could not be 
turned from doing what he believed was the best thing for the 
country. You read in your histories how he thought the 
National Bank was not good for the country, and therefore 
he refused to give it permission to continue business as it had 
done before. This made him unpopular in many places ; but 
that made no difference to him. He continued to serve two 
terms, or eight years, as President, which is the longest time 
any man has been in the President's office. To this day he is 
spoken of as one of the most interesting of the Presidents, 
and one of the great parties of the country, which we know 
as the Democratic party, consider Andrew Jackson as their 
greatest representative. 

We should not fail to tell you that Andrew Jackson's 
wife was one who was a great help to him, and influenced his 
life greatly. He married her soon after he went to Nashville, 
Tennessee. She was a woman who loved her home and her 
family, and did not care to appear much in public. Andrew 
Jackson was devoted to her, made her a good home, and was 
happiest when he was with her. 

Soon after he was elected President, she was taken sick 
and died. This brought a cloud over his life which remained 
with him as long as he lived, especially as she could aot share 
the sfreat honors which had come to him. So much did he 
grieve for her, that it is said that every night after her death 
until his own death he read a prayer from her prayer-book. 
His wife was buried in a little graveyard near his home in 
Tennessee, and there on June 21, 1845, ^ot many years after 
he had retired from serving his country as President, he 
passed quietly away at his home, the '* Hermitage," and was 
laid to rest in a grave by the side of his wife. 



MARTIN VAN BUREN 



THE HGHTH PRESIDENT. 




THE NEW YORK POLITICIAN. 

When Captain Henry Hudson 
came, in his ship the Half Moon, to 
Manhattan Island in 1609, he brought 
there a sturdy stock of people which 
has not yet died out. These were 
the Dutch, a race of strong fibre and 
shrewd brain. The English came, 
but the Dutch remained. Their de- 
' scendants remain to-day, and we owe 
to this good old Holland stock two 
of our Presidents, Martin Van Buren 
and Theodore Roosevelt. It is the 
first of these we have before us now. 
Martin came into the world in a lucky time, just as the 
British were letting go their hold on the fighting colonies. 
He was born December 5, 1782, when the war had ended and 
the treaty of peace between the United States and England 
was being considered. He was born in a little town with a 
strong Dutch name, Kinderhook. His mother's name was 
Hoes and his father's was Van Buren, both good Dutch names. 
Kinderhook is a little town still, on the Hudson River, 
about sixteen miles below Albany. Here his father, a shrewd, 
thrifty, good-natured Dutchman, kept the village tavern and 
worked a small farm, and made both pay him well. His 

103 



MARTIN VAN BUREN. 



I04 MARTIN VAN BUREN 

mother was pious and sensible. Both parents had good 
qualities, and Martin got his share of them. He was an active 
little lad, with the shrewdness and sense of his parents, and 
plenty of his father's good nature. 

The boy was sent to the best schools of the old town. 
And there was a school of politics inside his father's hostelry, 
where the neighbors gathered to talk over the events of the 
day, and where no doubt the quick-witted boy picked up 
many useful lessons : for there is often much sense in what 
the common people say. 

His father did not send him to college. Perhaps he 
thought too much learning would do more harm than good.- 
He wanted to give him knowledge that would pay, so he set 
him at studying law when he was fourteen and kept him at it 
till he was twenty-one. His last year of study was spent in 
New York City, under William P. Van Ness, who was a 
friend of Aaron Burr, and was to be his second in his famous 
duel with Alexander Hamilton. 

The boy from up the Hudson saw much of Burr, who was 
one of the most brilliant men of his time. He was what we 
would call to-day a party boss. He could talk over anybody 
to his side and knew all about the art of handling parties, and 
it is very likely Van Buren learned many lessons from him, 
for in later years he showed that he was well up in this art. 

He went home in 1803 and began practicing law. Very 
likely he expected to be a country lawyer all his life. He 
could not know how splendid a gift fortune had in hand for 
him. But he was bright and quick-witted enough to take all 
the chances that came and make the best of them. 

In the village academy he had learned some Latin, and 
was very fond of preparing declamations, and reciting them 
before the school. He made the very best use of his 



MARTIN VAN BU REN 105 

advantages, and it was well he did so, for he had to fight his 
way to the top of the ladder of fame. 

There is an interesting story told of him while he was 
studying law at Kinderhook. In those days the old lawyers 
often gave their students a chance to try small cases, where 
they had a chance to talk before juries. This was very good 
practice for them. 

When he was only sixteen years old little Van Buren 
was given a case to be tried before a Justice of the Peace and 
a jury in his native village of Kinderhook. Against him was 
an old lawyer of great experience and ability who had won 
almost every case he had undertaken ; but Martin, noth- 
ing daunted, went into court, and caused a great deal of 
amusement and fun at the trial. When the trial came on he 
was such a little fellow that his friends got a table and lifted 
him up on it to address the jury. You can imagine this boy 
of sixteen addressing a jury of gray-headed men ; but he had 
thoroughly prepared his case, and spoke so eloquently that he 
won it. No doubt the tall platform and his youthful appear- 
ance gained for him much better attention than he would 
otherwise have had. The court-room was crowded, and the 
trial gave the lookers-on a great deal of amusement. 

When he got through his law studies Martin began to 
practice in his native town of Kinderhook. Here he stayed 
for six years and was very successful. Then he moved to the 
city of Hudson. But before he left his native town he mar- 
ried Miss Hannah Hoes, an old playmate, and a relative of 
his mother. For twelve years they lived happily together. 
Then she died. Her husband kept her memory green in his 
heart and never married again. 

The young lawyer, like many other lawyers before him, 
quickly went into politics. The Federal party was the strong 



io6 



MARTIN VAN BU REN 



one in his neighborhood, and his friends blamed him for join- 
ing the Democrats, saying that he could never be elected 
to any office by that party. He told them plainly that he 
was going to live up to what he thought right if he never got 
into office. 

But the young man was born to win success. He had a 
good nature and a smiling and kindly manner that brought 




YOUNG MARTIN VAN BUREN WINS HIS FIRST CASE BEFORE JUDGE AND JURY. 



him plenty of friends. He was very industrious, and he was 
very fond of books, reading everything that came in his way. 
In those days books were not so plentiful as they are now, 
but he managed to learn a good many things outside of 
the law. After his six years' practice at Kinderhook Mr. Van 
Buren removed to the city of Hudson, where he had the 



MARTIN VAN BU REN 



107 



chance to come in contact with the best lawyers of the State. 
Here he gained a wide legal reputation, and grew so popular 
among the people that in 181 2 he was elected to the Senate 
of New York State. The war with England began that year. 
He did not believe in the war, but he worked for it, and 
helped pass a law for raising troops. This made him very 
popular with many people. After General Jackson's great vic- 
tory at New Orleans, he offered a resolution in the Senate to 
give the thanks of the State to that famous general. You will 
learn later on how well Jackson paid him for that resolution. 

As time went on Van Buren became very popular with 
his party. In 181 8 the New York Democratic party was 
reorganized by him, and his power in it became so great that 
"he held absolute control for twenty years." He had made 
himself what we call to-day a " Party Boss." Nothing was 
done in the party except at his command. 

New honors came to him fast. In 1821 he was sent by 
the Legislature of New York to the Senate of the United 
States. In the next Presidential election he fought hard 
against John Quincy Adams and for Andrew Jackson, and in 
1829, when Jackson was elected, many people said that he 
owed his election to Martin Van Buren, who had shown a 
wonderful power in managing political movements. He did 
not forget the lessons he had learned from Aaron Burr, the 
first great party manager. 

When Jackson became President Van Buren was Governor 
of the State of New York, to which he had been elected after he 
left the Senate. But the new President, who was very thank- 
ful to Van Buren for what he had done for him, asked him to 
give up his high office and come into his Cabinet as Secretary 
of State. Many people were surprised that Mr. Van Buren 
would give up the greatest position that he could hold in his 



io8 MARTIN VAN BUREN 

native State to become a member of the President's Cabinet, 
but he understood thoroughly what he was doing. To many 
people this would not have been a promotion, but to him it 
certainly was, for it kept for him the friendship of Andrew Jack- 
son ; other Secretaries of State had been made Presidents 
and he might be. No doubt he looked that far ahead. 

After he had acted as Secretary of State for a short time, 
President Jackson sent him to represent his government in 
England as Minister of the United States. This was a very 
important position, and he hurried to London. But he was 
not there long before he met with a great disappointment, for 
the United States Senate refused to approve his appointment. 
When he heard of it he was at a great banquet given by the 
famous Talleyrand, the French Minister. Everybody looked 
at Van Buren to see how he would bear the news. But if 
they expected to see a gloomy and sour face they were mis- 
taken, for he was as gracious, smiling and courteous as ever, 
and acted as if it was an every-day affair. 

When he came back he was a greater favorite with Presi- 
dent Jackson than ever. He had always known how to rub 
down the old war-horse the right way, and no matter what 
question Jackson brought up, whether wise or unwise, Van 
Buren gave it his full support. That was what we call curry- 
ing favor. Jackson paid him well for it, for when the next 
election came he used his great influence to have Van Buren 
made Vice-President. The smiling lawyer from Kinderhook 
had made his sharp practice in politics pay. 

The Vice-Presidency was the stepping-stone to a still 
higher honor, for in 1836, when Jackson's second term was 
near its end, he used all his vast influence to have his friend 
Van Buren nominated for President. The Whigs nominated 
General Harrison to run against him, but the Democratic 



MARTIN VAN BUREN icg 

party won, and the lawyer from Kinderhook was now lifted 
to the highest position in the nation, that of President of the 
United States. That was a great raise for the man who had 
made his way upward, first by managing a party then by 
managing a President. 

On March 4, 1837, ^^ immense crowd collected to see 
his inauguration. A striking scene it was when he rode 
side by side with Andrew Jackson in a phaeton drawn by four 
grays to take the oath of office. They were both uncovered 
and bowing to the cheers of the crowd. But the gaunt, iron 
face of "Old Hickory" was in strange contrast with the 
shrewd, smiling, handsome countenance of the man beside him. 

But Jackson, while he had made Van Buren President, 
had left plenty of trouble for him. By ruining the United 
States Bank, and by other acts, he brought a great business panic 
on the country, which lasted through all of the new Presi- 
dent's term. So in 1840, when the time for an election again 
came round, the people wanted a change, and the Whigs won 
by a large majority. Van Buren was badly beaten, and 
General Harrison was elected in his place. Of course, Van 
Buren would have liked to hold the Presidency for a second 
term ; but he bore his disappointment with his usual good 
nature and dignity, and retired to his New York home. But 
he had been a politician so long that it was not easy for him 
to withdraw entirely from taking a part in the great questions 
of the day, and there was not much went on that he did not 
have a hand in. 

He had lost favor with the South because he was not in 
favor of extending slavery into new territory, so he could not 
expect any further honors from his old party; yet he had a 
great many friends who believed in him still, and who chose 
him to be their candidate in 1848. They were called Free- 



no MARTIN VAN BU REN 

Soilers, and by some were called Barn-Burners ; but when the 
election came on he had a very small vote. 

In 1853 Mr. Van Buren decided to take a tour of Europe 
in company with one of his sons. This was the first time an 
Ex-President of the United States had visited a foreign coun- 
try. He had never been in the army, and therefore could not 
wear a uniform. Many questions arose as to how he should 
be received by the royalty abroad and what rank they would 
give him in their receptions. Mr. Van Buren made himself 
very agreeable and popular wherever he went, and did much 
to do away with any embarrassment. He visited England, 
Ireland, Scotland, and the principal countries and cities of 
Europe. 

The remainder of his days he passed quietly at his beau- 
tiful home, which he called Lindenwald, and where he ended 
his long and busy life on July 24, 1862. He was born just as 
the war of tne Revolution came to an end. He lived to see 
the opening of the great Civil War, dying at eighty years 
of age. 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 



THE NINTH PRESIDENT. 



THE HERO OF TIPPECANOE. 



Old Virginia is often called the 
mother of Presidents, and with good 
reason, for six of our Presidents 
have been born within her borders. 
This is nearly one-fourth the whole 
number. It was Virginia which fur- 
nished George Washington, the 
commander-in-chief of the revolu- 
tionary armies. It gave us also 
Jefferson, Madison and Monroe, the 
famous patriots of our early days, 
and we come to Virginia again, 
when we wish to know of William 
Henry Harrison. 
Benjamin Harrison, his father, had been one of the sign- 
ers of the Declaration of Independence, at Philadelphia, July 
4, 1776, and w^as one of the great men of his time. He was 
the friend of George Washington, and was among the first of 
those who said that the English should not make the colonists 
pay taxes and accept laws which they thought were unjust. 

If you have seen a picture of the names under the Declara- 
tion of Independence, you will remember in what a bold 
handwriting John Hancock signed his name. He and Mr. 




WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. 



XII 



112 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 



Harrison, the father of the boy who afterwards became Presi- 
dent of the United States, were great friends, and were once 
candidates for the same office in the convention which framed 
the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Hancock was a very 
small and modest man, and Mr. Harrison was a very large 
and good natured fellow, full of fun. Mr. Hancock was 
elected to the office of chairman, and Mr. Harrison picked him 




GENERAL HARRISON MEETS TECUMSEH, THE INDIAN CHIEF, AND IS 
NOT AFRAID OF HIS THREAT OF WAR. 

up as though he -were a child, and carried him and set him on 
the chairman's seat, saying to the convention: "Gentlemen, 
we will show Mother Britain how much we care for her, by 
making our President a Massachusetts man whom she has 
refused to pardon by a public proclamation." This caused a 
great laugh, because Mr. Harrison was so large and Mr. Han- 
cock looked so small beside him that his playful remark seemed 
the funnier. 



WILLIAM HENR Y HARRISON 1 1 3 

William Henry Harrison was born on the banks of the 
James River, in Virginia, February 9, 1773. Fortunately for 
him, his father was well-to-do and able to give him a good 
education, so he was sent to college and graduated with a great 
deal of honor to himself and his family. In the meantime 
his father had died, and the young college graduate went to 
Philadelphia to study medicine. A great many of his father's 
friends lived there, and he was very kindly received, but he 
did not continue the study of medicine very long. If he had 
done so, he might have made a great doctor, but he never 
would have been President of the United States. So far no 
doctor has ever become President of the United States. 

George Washington was President when Harrison was 
studying medicine, and there w^as a great deal of trouble with 
the Indians in the Northwest Territory, where now are the 
States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Washington had sent 
an army out there under General St. Clair to protect the set- 
tlers. Young Harrison heard a great deal of the cruelties 
the Indians were practising upon the settlers, and as he had 
much love of adventure, he joined the army, in which he was 
made ensign or corporal. These were low positions in the 
army. 

He was at this time slender in form, and frail in health. 
His many friends tried to persuade him to give up his com- 
mission and continue his study in medicine ; but he wanted 
to see some fighting, and started for the western country 
with the army. In the very first battle in which St. Clair's 
army was engaged it was almost totally destroyed by the 
Indians, but young Harrison escaped. 

His first experience in the army was in command of a 
pack-train, which in the winter time carried supplies to the 
small body of troops stationed near the western forts. Had 

8 



1 1 4 WILLIAM HENR Y HARRISON 

he not had a great deal of pluck and daring, he could not 
have been successful in this work. He was exposed to great 
danger from sudden attacks by the Indians, but showed him- 
self so brave and capable that he was promoted to the rank 
of lieutenant, and was sent with the main army to attack the 
Indians who were then making war against the western 
colonies. 

Although I have said that young Harrison was slight in 
build and appeared to his friends not to be strong, yet he 
found that he could endure more exposure by a great deal 
than many men who seemed to be much stronger. One reason 
he gave for this was that he made it a rule from the very first 
not to touch intoxicating liquors ; and he was always a 
thorough temperance man. His influence for temperance did 
much good with the young men who were with him in the army. 

You have no doubt heard of Mad Anthony Wayne, one 
of the heroes of the Revolutionary War. After St. Clair was 
killed he took command of the army, and while marching 
through the forests of Indiana he was attacked by a strong 
force of Indians in ambush — that is, they were hiding behind 
trees. A bloody battle followed, but W^ayne and his men 
were good fighters and the Indians were driven away, hun- 
dreds of them being killed. Lieutenant Harrison was espe- 
cially commended by General Wayne for his courage and 
ability. Wayne said, "Wherever duty called he hastened, 
regardless of danger, and by his efforts and example con- 
tributed as much to securing the fortunes of the day as any 
other officer subordinate to the commander-in-chief" This 
won for him the higher rank of Captain, and he was put in 
command of one of the large forts. 

After this great Territory had been freed from the attacks 
of the Indians, it was necessary to organize a government for it. 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 115 

There were not enough people to make it into a State, or to 
divide it into several States ; but a Governor and Secretary 
were appointed to take charge of it. Young Harrison, who 
was then only twenty-four years of age, gave up his position 
in the army and accepted the office of Secretary. 

Three years later, when the Northwest Territory was 
divided into two Territories, one of them being called Indiana, 
he was made governor of the latter, and given more power than 
was ever given to any other governor of a Territory. He made 
thirteen treaties with the Indians, by which the United States 
came into possession of millions and millions of acres of land. 
For twelve years he was Governor of the Territory of Indiana, 
and he performed his duties with the greatest skill and care 
and the most perfect honesty. 

You will remember that in 1803, when Thomas Jefferson 
was President of the United States, there was bought from 
France the great strip of territory which is called the " Louis- 
iana Purchase," and in which there are many large cities, 
including New Orleans and St. Louis. This was such a great 
event that now, one hundred years later, it is being celebrated 
by holding a great Exposition at St. Louis, on the banks of the 
Mississippi River. Our Mr. Harrison was the first governor of 
this vast territory, which was put under his charge as a part of 
Indiana Territory. 

At that time it was one vast wilderness, occupied by many 
tribes of Indians. Among these Indians were two remarkable 
chiefs who afterward gave a great deal of trouble. One was a 
great Indian warrior named Tecumseh, who was also known as 
"The Crouching Panther"; the other was Olliwacheca, "The 
Prophet." The former was a splendid fighter; the latter knew 
how to stir up the Indians by his eloquence and by his incanta- 
tions. He was called a "Medicine Man," or a "Magician." 



ri6 WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 

These two Indians traveled about among the tribes, 
doing all they could to stir them up to revolt. Governor 
Harrison heard of the trouble they were making and tried to 
quiet them by inviting them to a council. This was held on 
the 1 2th of August, 1809. Tecumseh came to the council 
with four hundred Indian warriors in their war-paint and com- 
pletely armed. Governor Harrison had only a small body- 
guard of twelve men and a few of the officers and citizens of 
the Territory. The Indians were very haughty, and said that 
"no more of their land should be given to the white man, 
and that they were determined to drive the whites away from 
that part of the territory." 

Tecumseh grew so angry as the council went on, that his 
warriors sprang to their feet and threatened to attack the white 
men with their war-clubs and guns. Governor Harrison 
sprang up also and drew his sword, and his guard got their 
guns ready to fire, but the Governor ordered them not to 
shoot, and told Tecumseh that he could go away unharmed. 
The Indians did so. They were scared by Harrison's bold- 
ness and spirit. 

You can readily see how frightened the settlers were at 
this state of affairs. With only a small guard of soldiers at 
the fort, they did not know at what moment the Indians might 
attack their cabins and kill the women and children ; but they 
had a brave governor who did not fear the Indians and was 
wise enough to know just how to act. He tried to persuade 
the Indians to lay down their arms and to believe that the 
white men would treat them fairly ; but in this he did not suc- 
ceed. But they did not then attack the settlers. 

In 181 2 war came on. with Great Britain, and an English 
army marched down from Canada. Its general coaxed the 
Indians to become his allies, and furnished them with guns 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 117 

and powder. This was a very wrong thing for him to do, for 
the Indian way of fighting was by murder and torture. Gov- 
ernor Harrison had all he could do and more than he cared 
for. He learned that a strong body of Indians had col- 
lected on the Wabash River, at a place called Tippecanoe, and 
he set out with a small army. When he approached the vil- 
lage, he found that there were several thousand Indians, and 
selected a suitable place for his camp. Some of the Indian 
chiefs visited his camp and asked him why he came to fight 
them. They tried to make him believe that they were peace- 
able and meant no harm, but he did not trust them. 

That night the soldiers slept with their guns by their 
sides and with the camp-fires put out. In the middle of the 
night the Indians crept upon the camp, expecting to find the 
soldiers asleep ; but General Harrison had expected such an 
attack, and the soldiers were not quietly sleeping, as the 
Indians thought. When they heard the savage yells of the 
red men, they sprang up with their guns and fired so fast 
that they drove the Indians away and killed great numbers 
of them. 

The Indian Prophet had told his followers that by his 
charms they would be protected from the bullets and from the 
bayonets. They soon discovered that he had deceived them 
and they fled to the swamps. Tecumseh, their great chief, 
was not there to lead them. 

This great victory at Tippecanoe made Governor Harri- 
son very famous, and afterward, when he was nominated for 
the Presidency, ''Old Tippecanoe" was a favorite motto 
printed on all the banners. ^\^ou see from what I have already 
told you that this frail young man, who had started out to be 
a doctor, proved himself to be a great general ; for it really 
requires more ability to command such soldiers as he had, and 



ii8 WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 

to fight the wild-wood Indians, than to command a well- 
drilled army and to fight trained soldiers. 

I cannot tell you of all his bravery and skill in leading 
his troops during the war with Great Britain. It is only 
necessary to say that he was victorious in forcing the British 
to leave Detroit, which they had captured from General Hull. 
He also pursued the British into Canada. How popular 
he was with his soldiers is illustrated by an incident which I 
shall tell : Once when his little army was making its way 
through the forest, night came on. It was very dark and 
rainy. The ground was covered with water, and they had no 
axes and could build no fires. Neither had they any food, 
and they had to pass the night in leaning up against trees or 
sitting on wooden logs. 

General Harrison passed the night with his men, with no 
more comforts than they had. In the middle of the night, in 
order to cheer them up, he asked one of the men to start 
a comic Irish song, which set everybody laughing, and, 
though hungry, they kept up brave hearts. Once when he 
had captured five British officers he invited them to take sup- 
per with him. They were surprised to find that the great 
American General had nothing to give them except beef, 
roasted in the fire, and without bread or salt. 

After the close of the war with Great Britain he resigned 
his commission in the army, and was elected a Representative 
of Congress by the new Territory of Ohio, which had been 
made out of a great wilderness. Congress recognized his 
splendid services by passing a resolution of thanks and giving 
him a gold medal. 

General Harrison, while in Congress, became known as one 
of the finest and best speakers among all the able men who 
were there with him. As I have told you, he had received a 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 119 

good education and had a well-trained mind. This showed itself 
when he had the opportunity to debate with his fellows in 
Congress. Although he had won his fame as a soldier, he 
did not think that this was the greatest glory which a man 
could win. He believed that a man should be truthful and 
honest, and kind to his fellows. His motto was: "To be 
eminently great, it is necessary to be eminently good." This 
motto describes General Harrison's life. 

After serving his country in Congress, and for a time as 
a Minister to Colombia, in South America, he retired to his 
home, near North Bend, on the Ohio River, and became a 
farmer. Although he was a great man in the eyes of his 
countrymen, yet he returned to his farm and performed the 
ordinary duties of a farmer in the West. You will remember 
that I have spoken of his temperance principles. After he had 
retired to his farm, a whiskey distillery was left him by a rela- 
tive ; but his temperance habits and principles would not 
allow him to own such a place and manufacture a poisonous 
drink which destroyed the lives and happiness of his fellow- 
men. At a great loss in money he gave up the business. 

There were other things besides temperance on which 
General Harrison had good ideas, and about which he was not 
afraid to speak, though other great men were keeping silence on 
them. One of these was the subject of slavery. Although he 
was born in a State where slaves were kept, and belonged to 
a family which owned slaves, yet he never thought it was 
right for one man to own another. At the age of eighteen 
he became a member of an Abolition Society in Richmond, 
Virginia, the object of which was to make better the condition 
of the slaves, and to improve their treatment by their masters. 
While in Congress, he was the first to introduce a law that 
slaves should not be kept in States made out of new territory. 



I20 WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 

For nearly ten years General Harrison lived quietly on 
his farm near North Bend, in the State of Ohio. In 1840 he 
was nominated by the Whig party for President, and John 
Tyler of Virginia was the candidate. for Vice-President. 

At this time he lived in a log-cabin built many years 
before by a pioneer, and afterward covered with pine 
boards. He lived in such a simple way that visitors to the 
house said that "his table, instead of being supplied with 
costly wines, was furnished with an abundance of the best cider." 
Many began to make fun and sneer at the log-cabin and hard 
cider ; but the people liked the man who could be simple and 
moderate, so that during the campaign log-cabins were erected 
in every village and city and hard cider was the principal 
beverage. People went marching around carrying pictures of 
the log-cabin and singing such songs as, 

"Oh ! where, tell me where, was the log-cabin made ? 
It was made by the boys that wield the plow and the spade ! ''" 

Often at night horsemen could be heard riding home singmg 
the praises of "Old Tippecanoe." The story is told that 
in one of the back-woods churches of Ohio, after the preacher 
had announced the hymn of the evening, an old and staid 
deacon who led the singing broke in with the Harrison 
** Campaign Song," in which the whole congregation, after the 
first moment's shock, heartily joined, while the preacher himself 
had all he could do to refrain from coming in on the chorus. 
You can imagine what excitement prevailed during this 
election. Our grandmothers and grandfathers never saw such 
times before. When they came to counting the votes, it was 
found that Martin van Buren, who was then President, had 
received only sixty electoral votes, while General Harrison had 
received two hundred and thirty-four. It is said that the 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON 



121 



supply of hard cider was almost all exhausted within three 
days after the election. The people evidently were happy. 

But the rest of our story must be very brief No one of 
our Presidents was better prepared by education and experi- 
ence to become an able President than was William Henry 
Harrison. Like General Washington, he was greatly beloved 
by the people for his good habits, kindness of heart and 




THE DEFEAT OF THE INDIANS BY GENERAL WAYNE, 
Lieutenant William Henry Harrison rendered conspicuous service and won promotion. 

honesty. His journey from his home in Ohio to the White 
House was marked by enthusiastic festivities. The people 
met him in crowds and gave him a grand reception. A vast 
collection of people attended the inaugural ceremonies at 
Washington, and he made an address in which he set forth 
the high aims which he had for the performance of his duties. 
He selected as his Secretary of State Daniel Webster, 
who was one of the greatest statesmen of his time. The 



122 WILLIAM HENR Y HARRISON 

other men in the Cabinet were also distinguished men, and 
every one looked forward to four prosperous and happy years 
which would come in the presidency of such a good and great 
man. But in the midst of these bright and joyous expecta- 
tions, President Harrison was taken very sick with a fever, 
and after a few days he died, in one short month after his 
inauguration. 

It was considered at the time that his death was the 
greatest misfortune that could have happened to the country, 
and the people mourned him in every village and city. It 
was the first time in our history that a President had died in 
office. According to our laws the Vice-President, John Tyler, 
succeeded to the office, and became President of the United 
States to finish the uncompleted term. 

You who have read the biographies of the other Presi- 
dents must agree with me that President Harrison was a good 
and great man, and that his life was one of the most interest- 
ing of those of all the Presidents, for he had been great as a 
soldier, a governor, a member of Congress, and a man. 



JOHN TYLER 

THE TENTH PRESIDENT. 




THE SURPRISE PRESIDENT. 

There are many boys and men 
in our country with an ambition only 
to make good lawyers, good doctors, 
good merchants, good farmers or 
good mechanics. By dint of good 
work they will be likely enough to 
.! succeed in this. But the world may 
hold a great surprise for them, and 
take them far beyond what they ex- 
pected. It is of one of these great 
surprises I wish to speak. Certainly 
no man could have been more sur- 
prised than John Tyler, when a mes- 
senger, riding desperately from Washington, arrived early 
one morning at his country seat with a letter which told him 
that he was the President of the United States. Here is the 

letter : 

Washington, April 4, 1841. 

"To John Tyler, Vice-President of the United States: 

" Sir : — It becomes our painful duty to inform you that 
William Henry Harrison, late President of the United 
States, has departed this life. 

" This distressing event took place this day, at the 
President's mansion in this city, at thirty minutes before one 
in the morning. 

123 



JOHN TYLER. 



124 JOHN TYLER 

" We lose no time in despatching the chief clerk in the 
State Department as a special messenger to bear you these 
melancholy tidings. 

" We have the honor to be with highest regard, 

"Your obedient servants." 

To this letter was signed the names of Daniel Webster and 
other members of President Harrison's Cabinet. 

John Tyler was the first man to become President of the 
United States by the death of another President. You know 
that in our form of government the people elect a President, 
who rules the country with the aid of Congress, and whose 
place must be filled if he should die during the four years for 
which he is elected. At the same time that the President is 
elected, a Vice-President is also elected, to succeed him in 
office in case of his death ; so when William Henry Harrison 
was nominated for President, John Tyler was the candidate 
for Vice-President. I have told you already how, during the 
exciting election of these two men, the banners carried the 
strange words " Tippecanoe and Tyler too." 

Before I tell you what Tyler did as President, you will 
be interested in learning something of his early life, and you 
will also see why we say it is very important for every boy or 
girl who begins life to try and do everything so well, that if 
he should be called upon to fill a great office, or even to 
become President of the United States, he will be well pre- 
pared for it. This is just what John Tyler did. 

He was born in Virginia, near Charles City, March 29, 1790. 
His father, whose name was also John Tyler, was a staunch 
old Virginia patriot, and had been Speaker of the Continental 
Congress. He was now a prominent lawyer, and it was his 
wish that his son, if possible, should also be well educated 
and study law. It is a great help to a boy when a father can 



JOHN TYLER 125 

help him decide what he shall do, and give him a good 
start. 

Unlike some other Presidents of whom we have read, John 
Tyler's early home surroundings were very good. He came of 
the old planter class, with its culture and high social distinc- 
tion. Although his father was not a man of wealth, yet he 
had sufficient means to give his son a good education. Very 
early did his father and mother begin to teach him things at 
home; so when he began to go to school he knew how to 
read and write, and also was very fond of books. 

He very soon showed that he was a boy of more than 
ordinary ability. He had a quick mind, an excellent memory, 
was very fond of his books, and got a good start in his 
happy home under the training of his parents. He was 
only twelve years old when he was prepared to enter the Wil- 
liam and Mary College, at Williamsburg, in Virginia. Here 
he studied so hard and did so well that he graduated with 
honor from this famous old college at the age of seventeen. 

The boy was ambitious and determined to rise to the top 
of his profession, the law. His father was prominent in poli- 
tics, and had served, as we have seen, in the Continental 
Congress. He had also served in the House of Burgesses, 
which was the name given to the Legislature of Virginia. He 
was still more honored in 1 838, when he was made Governor 
of that State. This was a great help to the young lawyer, 
who eagerly went into politics and began to deliver political 
speeches — or stump speeches, as they are often called to-day. 

The young orator belonged to the Democratic party, 
which was then the leading party of the country, the one to 
which Jefferson and Madison had belonged. He was only 
twenty-one years of age when his neighbors and friends nomi- 
nated him for the House of Burgesses, and he was elected. 



126 



JOHN TYLER 



This was a great honor for one so young, and he was sent to 
represent the county for five terms in succession. Before the 
w^ar with England began, in 1812, young Tyler had won a 
fine business and had a high reputation as a lawyer. When 
the war broke out he showed that he was as warm a patriot 
as his father had been before him. When the British sailed 
up the Chesapeake and began to burn and plunder, he did all 
he CQuld to stir up the people and gather the militia to oppose 

them. No man was more 
energetic than he in this work. 
He was a young man of 
very easy and graceful man- 
ners, a good speaker, and 
ready to be friends with 
every one, and in the year 
1 81 6 his admirers nomi- 
nated him for Congress, 
and he was sent to W^ash- 
ington to represent his dis- 
trict. He was then only 
twenty-six: years old. Very few men have 
entered Congress so young. But although 
}Oung in years, his experience in the politics 
of his State gave him the skill and power of a much 
older man. While in Congress he worked so hard that he 
found it necessary to resign in his second term and retire 
to his native county to regain health and strength. But his 
friends did not allow him to remain at home long. They sent 
him to the State Legislature, and a little later, in 1825, elected 
him by a large majority to become Governor of their State. 

As Governor, he showed that he was deeply interested 
in the welfare of his State, and through his efforts a great 




1 



WESTERN RAILROAD IN 
EARLIER DAYS. 



JOHN TYLER 127 

many useful laws were passed improving the condition of the 
people. Before this time Mr. Tyler was happily married. 
He had fallen in love with an attractive young lady of Cedar 
Grove, Virginia, named Miss Letitia Christian. He was 
twenty-three years old when the wedding took place. The 
newly wedded pair settled at Greenway, on a part of the Tyler 
estate, where they lived in great harmony and happiness. 

It was not long before there was an opportunity for the 
young Governor to be elected to the United States Senate. 
About that time John Randolph, a distinguished orator from 
Virginia, but who had done a great many things to displease 
the people of the State, was a candidate for re-election. John 
Tyler was nominated to run against him, and was elected, 
having the honor of defeating one of the most famous men of 
the old Congress. This was in 1827, when he was only 
thirty-seven years of age. At this time John Quincy Adams 
was President of the United States. He served only a short 
time when he resigned and returned to Virginia and to his 
law practice. In this way he w^as able to earn a large amount 
of money for those times. 

Although he had withdrawn from Congress, he con- 
tinued to be very popular in his State. He was a Democrat 
still, but people began to call him the ** Southern Whig" ; for 
though he differed with the Whigs of the North in some 
things, yet in many others he agreed with them. That was 
why, when the time came for the Whigs to nominate a Presi- 
dent, and wanted a Southern man to run with William Henry 
Harrison for President, they nominated John Tyler for Vice- 
President. It was the votes of the Northern Whigs that, in 
the famous log-cabin campaign, made John Tyler the Demo- 
crat Vice-President of the United States. 

At the time this was done no one imagined that he would 



128 JOHN TYLER 

be called upon to be President, and no one thought it made 
much difference what ideas the Vice-President might hold. 
You know the Vice-President is the man who presides oyer 
the United States Senate. He is sometimes called the Presi- 
dent of the Senate. So it occurred that when William Henry 
Harrison was elected President, John Tyler became the pre- 
siding officer of the United States Senate. 

President Harrison, as you have been told, lived only 
one month after he was inaugurated, and when he died the 
Presidency came to John Tyler. It was then that word was 
sent him, at his quiet home in Williamsburg, that he had 
become President of the United States. On receiving this 
important notice, he hurried with all speed to Washington 
and took the oath of office. 

At that time some of the high Cabinet officials did not 
know what title to give him. He was the first Vice-President 
to become President, and they said it was not right for him to 
have the full title. There was a political question in this, for 
they did not know if Mr. Tyler would carry out the Whig 
policy. But he made short work of their objections, and at 
once took the title of President, as the Constitution gave him 
the right to do. 

An interesting incident is told of what happened when he 
came to Washington. President Harrison had several very 
distinguished men in his Cabinet, probably the most distin- 
guished being Daniel Webster, the great orator and states- 
man. He himself had also been a candidate for the Presi- 
dency. At the very first meeting the new President had with 
the Cabinet, he was told that it was customary for the Presi- 
dent to take the advice of his Cabinet, and not to act upon 
anything before it was voted upon. The President, they said, 
should have one vote, and each one of his Cabinet officers 



JOHN TYLER 129 

should have one vote. Mr. Tyler listened quietly to what 
they had to say, and then informed them that h-e considered 
he was President of the United States. He was ready to fol 
low their advice and counsel, if he approved of it, but he him- 
self was responsible for the decision that was reached, and 
was not willing to have it settled by a Cabinet vote. If they 
did not like it that way they could resign. This rather sur- 
prised his Cabinet, but they knew very well that he was right, 
and they concluded to stay where they were. 

Mr. Tyler had nearly four years to serve as President of 
the United States. He soon made it plain to the people of 
the United States that he did not agree at all with the ideas 
that President Harrison held on a great many subjects. He 
had been elected as a Whig, but he was really a Democrat. 

President Tyler's position became soon very unpleasant. 
The people who had elected him did not like him, and many 
of those who had voted against him did not approve of what 
he had done ; so the four years he was in office were very 
bitter and quarrelsome ones. When a new election took place 
Mr. Tyler was not nominated, and on the 4th of March, 1845, 
he was succeeded by James Knox Polk. 

But the years that followed were very stirring years, for 
the great slavery contest had now come on. Finally the 
North and South could no longer agree, and the great Civil 
War broke out. Mr. Tyler was then living in Virginia, 
and he went with the South. He was elected to the Con- 
federate Congress, but was not able to take much part. He 
was an old man now, and the excitement of the time bore 
heavily on him. He was attacked by a severe illness in 1862, 
and on January i8th he died at his home near Charles City. 

9 



JAMES KNOX POLK 

THE ELEVENTH PRESIDENT. 




JAMES KNOX POLK. 



A NORTH CAROLINA BOY. 

We all know of the Declara- 
tion of Independence which was 
written by Thomas Jefferson, and 
first made public at Philadelphia in 
1776; but there was another Dec- 
laration written more than a year 
before this, which was also an inter- 
esting document, and perhaps 
might be well called the first Dec- 
laration of Independence. Not 
many boys and girls know of this, 
so I shall tell it to you, *as it was 
the grandfather and great uncle of James Knox Polk, the 
eleventh President of the United States, who helped to have 
it adopted. 

It was in a little country town in North Carolina that 
this interesting event took place. A number of the people 
met and made the following declaration : " We, the citizens 
of Mecklenburg County, do hereby dissolve the political bonds 
which have connected us to the mother-country, and hereby 
absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, and 
we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people." 
This was on the 19th of May, 1775. Perhaps Thomas 
Jefferson and his fellow patriots had heard of it. At any rate, 
130 



JAMES KNOX POLK 131 

it showed the same spirit as did the more famous Declaration 
issued in Philadelphia. When you think that this was the 
declaration of a few hundred people at most, who lived in one 
of the counties of North Carolina, it is almost enough to make 
one laugh. Yet these same people afterward did valuable 
service for the cause of independence, and their bold Declara- 
tion will always be remembered. They were of that strong 
and sturdy Scotch-Irish people who did so much in settling the 
great wilderness of the Carolinas. Andrew Jackson was of the 
same stock, and his mother at one time fled from the British to 
Mecklenburg County and lived with neighbors of the Polks. 

It was in this same Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, 
that, on the 2d of November, 1795, James Knox Polk was 
born. His father, Samuel Polk, was a plain farmer, but the 
mother is said to have been a superior woman. Soon after 
James was born, the father took his little family and moved 
west some two hundred miles, to the frontier of Tennessee, 
where, in a rich valley on Duck River, he and his neighbors 
built their log huts and started their homes. Others soon fol- 
lowed, until there was quite a settlement on Duck River. 

It was as a farmer's boy, working hard in felling trees, 
building fences, and planting crops, that James Knox Polk 
spent his childhood days. His father was a surveyor as well 
as a farmer, and soon became one of the leading men in that 
section of the country. He took with him on his long sur- 
veying expeditions his son James, then a bright but rather 
frail boy. They climbed mountains, waded through mountain 
gorges, and often had narrow escapes from the Indians. The 
boy, no doubt, had fine times helping to build the camp fires 
and cook the game at night in the Tennessee woods. 

He was fond of study and was sent to the public schools 
and soon showed a taste for reading the best books he could 



132 JAMES KNOX POLK 

get. A boy who is willing to learn and desires to get good 
books is very likely to succeed. So it was with young Polk. 
His mother did much to assist him, and through her training 
he became a very careful student, and cultivated a fondness 
for books. 

When he got older his father placed him in a store ; but 
that kind of life did not please the boy at all, so his father soon 
took him away and sent him to a college at Murfreesboro that 
he might get a better education. He afterward sent him to 
the University of North Carolina. Here he was so regular in 
his habits and so punctual that his fellow students said, when 
they desired to declare that something was sure to happen, 
"It is as certain as that Polk will get up at the first call." 

He was twenty-three years old when he graduated from 
the University. He graduated the best scholar of his class, 
but he studied so hard that his health was affected, and he 
had to take a good rest. 

He was getting pretty old for school life, but he was not 
through yet, for now he decided to study the law. So he 
went to Nashville, in Tennessee, and there he entered the 
office of a lawyer named Felix Grundy. 

You may remember that " Old Hickory," the hero of 
New Orleans, lived near Nashville, in his home called the 
Hermitage. He often stopped at Grundy's office for a chat, 
and young Polk was much attracted to him. His friendship 
for Andrew Jackson lasted through his life and had much 
influence on his character and career. 

In due time the student became a lawyer, and hung out 
his sign in Columbia, in the "Duck River District." He had 
most pleasant manners, and had learned to speak with a great 
deal of ease and eloquence, so it was not long before he was 
in great demand to make speeches on all kinds of subjects. 



JAMES KNOX POLK 133 

Some one has said, "There is nothing in this world so profit- 
able as pleasant words and friendly smiles, provided that these 
words and smiles come honestly from the heart." This describes 
the young man of whom we are speaking, for he had kind words 
and sunny smiles for every one, and they came from his heart." 

He grew so popular as a political speaker that his friends 
called him the " Napoleon of the stump." I do not know why, 
except because he conquered the good will of his audiences. 
In politics he was a Democrat of a strenuous kind, and in 
1823 his neighbors elected him to the Legislature of Tennes- 
see. In the next year he worked with all his strength and 
power of oratory for the election of his old friend, Andrew 
Jackson, to the Presidency. One bill he carried through the 
legislature was to put an end to the practice of dueling. 

Mr. Polk was very fortunate in marrying a young woman 
of great beauty and culture. Her name was Miss Sarah 
Childless. She little dreamed that her husband would become 
President and she mistress of the White House and the 
first lady of the land. But she was of fine character and had 
the grace and dignity suited to that high position. The 
marriage was a very happy one. 

While she was mistress of the White House a pleasing 
story is told of her and Henry Clay, one of the most famous 
statesmen and orators of the United States. While sitting at 
table one day, Mr. Clay said in his most courtly way, " Madam, 
I must say that in my travels, wherever I have been, in all 
companies and among all parties, I have heard but one 
opinion of you. All agree in praising in the highest terms 
your management of the domestic affairs of the White House ; 
but, as for that young gentleman there (meaning her husband^ 
the President), I cannot say as much. There is some little 
difference in regard to the policy oi his course." 



134 JAMES KNOX POLK 

Mrs. Polk was quite equal to the distinguished statesman, 
and replied, " Indeed, I am glad to hear that my administration 
is popular, and in return for your compliment I will say that if 
the country should elect a Whig next fall, I know of no one 
whose elevation would please me more than that of Henry 
Clay ; and I assure you of one thing, if you do have occasion 
to occupy the White House on the 4th of March next, it shall 
be surrendered to you in perfect order from garret to cellar." 
Her reply caused a loud shout of laughter. 

Mr. Polk rose rapidly in popular favor, and was elected 
to high offices. In 1825 he was elected a member of Con- 
gress, where he served for fourteen years. Afterward he 
became Governor of his native State. While in Congress, he 
was a great friend of General Jackson, and always took his 
side whenever he was criticised, and this was pretty often, for 
Jackson did many things which people did not like. 

For five sessions Mr. Polk was Speaker of the House, a 
position which needed all his courtesy and strength of mind. 
In 1839 he resigned from Congress and was elected Governor 
of Tennessee. But he was defeated for a second term, for the 
Whigs were in power there. We are told the amusing story 
that Polk rode about the country with the Whig who was 
contesting with him for the governorship, and that they even 
slept in the same bed. Two years after he ran for governor 
again, and was once more defeated by his old bed-fellow. 

But his time for much higher honors was coming. A 
great question had arisen in the southwest. I will tell you 
all about it when I come to speak of President Taylor, and 
will only say here that Texas had broken away from Mexico 
and was asking the United States to take it in. A fierce 
excitement arose over this. The Southern people thought it 
would make a fine slave State and wanted it badly. The 



JAMES KNOX POLK 135 

anti-slavery people of the North fought against it with all 
their strength. 

Among those who worked for annexation none were more 
active and earnest than James K. Polk. I do not fancy that 
he thought this would help him much. He simply thought it 
was the right thing to do. But it did help him a great deal, 
for it made him President of the United States. When the 
time for the election of 1844 came on, the Democrats took him 
up for their candidate for the Presidency. ''Old Hickory" 
was still a great power in American politics and gave him 
much help in getting the nomination. Henry Clay, the great 
Southern orator, was the Whig candidate. Everybody thought 
he would be elected ; but he did not want Texas annexed, 
and that lost him many votes, so that Polk was elected by a 
small majority. 

On his way from Nashville to the Capital, the new Presi- 
dent traveled part way by steamer and the rest of the way by 
stage. There were railroads in those days, but they were very 
few. It was during President Polk's term of office that we 
had the war with Mexico on account of the admission of 
Texas to the United States. The hero of this war was 
General Zachary Taylor, who afterward became President, 
and when you read of his life you will learn more about it. 
At the end of the war the United 'States acquired a large ter- 
ritory, which included in addition to Texas, all of California, 
Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. All this territory, equal 
to many times the size of the States of Pennsylvania or New 
York, was obtained from Mexico. 

Mr. Polk served only one term as President, and was 
succeeded by General Zachary Taylor. As the 4th of March, 
the day on which the inaugural ceremonies are held, fell on 
Sunday, they were held on Monday, March 5th. Mr. Polk 



136 JAMES KNOX POLK 

and General Taylor rode to the Capitol in the same carriage, 
as was customary, and the same evening Mr. Polk returned 
to his home in Tennessee. 

On his way south the late President was met everywhere 
with the greatest enthusiasm, and the large cities gave him 
receptions. He passed through Wilmington, Charleston, 
Savannah, and New Orleans, in each of which he had a grand 
ovation. He made his home in Nashville, Tennessee, where 
he had bought a beautiful mansion, but he did not live long 
to enjoy the rest he so well deserved. Cholera was in the air 
that summer, and he became one of the victims of the subtle 
disease. He had seemed well, and could be seen every day 
about his dwelling giving directions for improvements. He 
appeared erect and healthful and with an activity of manner 
which gave promise of a long life. He was but fifty-four 
years of age, and only his flowing gray locks made him look 
beyond the middle age of life. Yet he had felt symptoms of 
the prevailing disease when coming up the Mississippi River, 
and soon after his return home became suddenly ill. In a 
few days afterward he died. 

Kneeling at his bedside as he passed away was his aged 
mother, who offered up a beautiful prayer to the Lord of lords 
and the King of kings committing the soul of her son to his 
heavenly keeping. He died on June 15, 1849. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR 

THE TWELFTH PRESIDENT. 




"OLD ROUGH AND READY." 

"Old Rough and Ready" was 
what the soldiers called Zachary Tay- 
lor when he was fighting the battles 
of the United States in the war with 
Mexico. He was not a tall, hand- 
some soldier, like General Scott, who 
fought in the same war, but short 
and dumpy, with a blunt, plain face. 
But anybody could see that he was 
kind and honest, and he was brave 
as a lion. He was just what the sol- 
diers called him. He could be rough, 
but he was always ready. 
"General Taylor never surrenders," he said, when Santa 
Anna, with his twenty thousand trained Mexican troops, sent 
word to him to surrender with his feeble five thousand. 

Then he rode along the ranks and said to his men, 
" Soldiers, I intend to stay here, not only as long as a man 
remains, but as long as 2l piece of a man is left." 

That is the kind of man that wins battles. And Santa 
Anna learned that when his twenty-five thousand were put to 
flight by the five thousand Americans at Buena Vista. 

Zachary Taylor was born in Virginia, though he lived 
most of his life in Kentucky and Louisiana. He was born on 

137 



ZACHARY TAYLOR. 



138 ZACHAR Y TA YLOR 

the 20th of November, 1 784, the year after the treaty of peace 
with England brought the war of the Revolution to an end. 
His father, Colonel Richard Taylor, had fought in that war 
and was greatly admired by his friends and neighbors for his 
patriotism and bravery. Like many people even in the 
present day who have small families, and desire to obtain 
more land and have greater opportunities to make money, he 
decided to move west. Zachary was only a baby when the 
old home in Virginia was left, and the father, mother, and 
three children set out on their long journey through the wil- 
derness to Kentucky, which was then a wild and dangerous 
land, with few people except savage Indians. Daniel Boone, 
the famous Indian fighter, was still there. 

Mr. Taylor settled down in the blue-grass country a few 
miles from where the city of Louisville now stands. He built 
a rude cottage, and began to clear the ground for his farm. 
There were no school-houses near, and so young Zachary had 
verv limited opportunities to acquire an education. He began 
to go to school when six years old, attending only a few 
months in the year a school held in a log cabin quite a dis- 
tance from his home. He was known as a bright, active boy 
who had a mind of his own. He was as brave as a boy could 
be, was afraid neither of wild animals nor Indians, and learned 
learned to rely .upon himself and to defend the weak. 

Very early he showed a strong desire to go into the army 
and fight the Indians, who were at that time making attacks 
upon the frontier towns, burning the farm-houses and killing 
the people. Knowing his son's desire to enter the army, his 
father, who was now a man of influence in the new State of 
Kentucky, succeeded in getting for him a commission, and he 
was appointed a lieutenant in the regular United States army. j 
He was sent to New Orleans to join the troops stationed j 



ZA CHAR Y TA YL OR 



139 



there under General Wilkinson. Young Taylor was then 
twenty-four years of age. 

You will remember, from what I have said in previous 
stories, that the United States had a second war with Great 
Britain in 181 2. For two or three years before this there were 
quarrels between the two countries, for the British interfered 
greatly with American ships and sailors. The English officers 
in Canada were doing their best to rouse the Indians against 
us, though they knew very well the dreadful way the Indians 
dealt with the white people. 

By the time war broke out, Zachary Taylor had been pro- 
moted, and was now called Captain Taylor. He was put in 
command of Fort Harrison on the Wabash River. This fort, 
which had been built by General Harrison before the battle of 
Tippecanoe, was only a row of log huts and high pickets, with 
a block-house at each end. It had for its guard a small com- 
pany of foot soldiers numbering about fifty men. 

One night, soon after Captain Taylor took command, the 
Indians crept up stealthily in Jarge numbers upon the fort. It 
was midnight when the soldiers in the fort were roused by 
the fearful war-whoop and the wild yells of the savage war- 
riors. But Captain Taylor was not taken by surprise, and his 
men were on the alert. They knew that if the fort was taken 
every being captured in it would be put to death with the 
greatest torture. 

I wish I could paint for you the scene. It is really too 
awful to attempt. The Indians set fire to one of the cabins 
where there was a large amount of whiskey stored. The 
sheets of flame rising up made the sky as bright as day, 
bringing into clear view the surrounding woods and fields. 
As the soldiers and the women and children looked out from 
their cabins, they saw the dancing savages, the blaze of the 



140 



ZA CHAR Y TA YL OR 



fire, and everything calculated to strike terror to the bravest 
heart. But no one thought of surrender. The few men in 
the fort, invalids and all, fought with splendid courage, keep- 
ing up the fight until six o'clock in the morning, when the 
savages, howling with rage, disappeared in the wilderness. 

In 1836 the Government sent Colonel Taylor to Florida 
to make the Seminole Indians move from that territory across 
the Mississippi, as their chiefs had promised they would do. 
As they refused to move. Colonel Taylor was told either to 
make them move or capture them. It was a disagreeable 
duty, for the Indians had been very badly treated by the 
whites. But he was a soldier and it was his business to do 
what he was ordered. The Indians had built a fort for them- 
selves on an island in the swamps around Lake Okeechobee. 
In order to get at them Taylor had to march through a wild 
country which had no roads or paths, and for nearly one hun- 
dred and fifty miles his little army of one thousand men had 
to cut down trees, build bridges, wade across streams, and 
sleep on the wet ground. They had to carry their own pro- 
visions, and often marched under the greatest difficulties. 

The Indians were hard to catch. They could run like so 
many deer, and, knowing all the country round, they could 
easily keep out of the way of the soldiers. Finally Colonel 
Taylor found them in their stronghold on Lake Okeechobee. 
'He ordered his soldiers to rush upon them, and try to drive 
them out. This was not easy to do. At first the soldiers 
were driven back by the Indians, but they finally attacked 
them from another side, drove them out from their strong 
place and killed a great number. The remainder of the 
Indians surrendered and consented to move to the region 
where the Government wanted them to go. 

For his skill and courage in conducting this war against 



ZA CHAR Y TA YL OR 



141 



the poor Seminole Indians, Colonel Taylor was promoted 
again and made Brigadier-General. He spent two years more 
in Florida, and then was put in charge of the department of 
the Southwest, which took in the States from Georgia to 
Louisiana. He bought a plantation near Baton Rouge, in 




OSCEOLA'S INDIGNATION. 

Osceola, the Seminole chief, drew his hunting knife and drove it through the treaty which some of hisfellow 

chiefs had signed, and thus started the Seminole war, 1832, in which General Taylor was engaged. 

Louisiana, moved his family there, and saw his wife's eyes 
grow glad as they rested on the fair southern landscape, with 
its carpet of flowers. Here he had a true home at last, and 
here he lived nearly five years. At the end of that time a 
new war broke out in which General Taylor was one of the 
leading generals, and had an opportunity of winning the 



142 ZACHARY TAYLOR 

renown which finally brought him to the Presidency. This 
was the war with Mexico. 

General Taylor, who was at that time at New Orleans, 
was ordered to march with the force under his command into 
Texas, and take up a position on the banks of the Rio Grande 
River. This the Texans claimed as their western boundary, 
while the Mexicans said the boundary was on the Neuces 
River, which was a hundred miles or more further east. 

General Taylor was a soldier, and knew that it was his 
business to obey orders. Although he did not think there 
was a good cause for war, he did as he was directed, and 
marched his troops to the Rio Grande. Mexican troops had 
crossed this river and soon there was fighting. This was fol- 
lowed by a declaration of war. General Taylor won two 
small victories on Texas soil and then crossed the Rio Grande 
into Mexico. He had been given the thanks of Congress and 
been made a Major-General for the victories already won. 

The most famous battle in which General Taylor was 
engaged was the battle of Buena Vista. There he met the 
Mexican General Santa Anna. He had only about 5000 
men, while the Mexicans had about 20,000. They were 
in the mountains, where Taylor selected a good position for 
his army, and drew them up to the best possible advantage. 
Anxiously the soldiers awaited the approach of the Mexicans, 
who could be seen coming amid great clouds of dust. Every- 
body watched the face of the commanding officer. Some one 
told General Taylor that a Mexican with a flag of truce wished 
to see him. It was a messenger from Santa Anna telling 
General Taylor that he had 20,000 troops and asking him to 
surrender. You have already been told the bold answer 
which the blunt soldier sent back, and what he said to his sol- 
diers. You may be sure they cheered him warmly as he rodei 



ZA CHAR Y TA YL OR 143 

along their ranks on his old white horse and in his rusty 
uniform. ' 

When the battle was hottest, and the Mexicans were 
coming on very boldly, General Taylor rode up to a captain 
of artillery and quietly said, '* Captain Bragg, give them a 
little more grape." By this he meant that Captain Bragg 
should load his cannon with fine shot and drive back the 
enemy. And that was what the captain did, driving the 
Mexicans back in dismay. 

It was a fearful battle, and at the close of the day over 700 
of the American soldiers were killed or wounded, and nearly 
three times as many Mexicans. Many a time that day it was 
doubtful which side would win ; but finally General Taylor's 
little band won the victory over Santa Anna's great army of 
20,000 men. This victory caused the wildest enthusiasm 
throughout the United States. Everybody praised General 
Taylor as one of the greatest of soldiers. 

Soon after this came the time for nominating a man for 
the Presidency to succeed President Polk. The Whig party 
thought that it was a good opportunity to take advantage of 
the popularity of General Taylor, and he was nominated for 
the Presidency. When he heard of it he said he would not 
consent to such a thing, declaring that he was only a soldier 
and was not fit to be President. For nearly forty years he 
had not cast a vote. There were many distinguished men 
w^ho wanted the honor, and who had rendered their country 
valuable services, and these, of course, were sorely disap- 
pointed when General Taylor was nominated for the Presi- 
dency. 

General Taylor had been given very little education. He 
did not know much of the ways of the world nor the history 
of diff'erent countries. Like every one else who undertakes 



144 ZACHAR V TA YLOR 

something that he does not know much about, it caused him 
a great deal of worry when he found that he was elected 
President over two other candidates, Martin van Buren, who 
already had served one term as President, and General Cass. 

However, his friends helped him write his speeches and 
prepare his public documents. When he went into office he 
found the people were very much agitated over the slavery 
question, and those who were opposed to slavery were very 
bitter against those who were for it. This gave much trouble 
to the poor President, who knew nothing about politics 
or the great national questions. It was easier for him to 
fight a battle than to try to please the different parties. All 
this worried him greatly and no doubt hastened his death. 
At any rate, he had not been in office much over a year before 
he took a severe cold, and after a brief illness of five days 
died July 5, 1850. His last words were: *T am not afraid to 
die. I am ready. I have endeavored to do my duty." He 
was the second President who had died in office. The people 
loved him dearly and respected him for his honesty. 

So the kindly, honest, faithful old soldier, well named 
" Rough and Ready," left the world. Simple in his habits, 
kind-hearted, and true to his friends, brave as a lion before 
the enemy, and eager to do his duty in every position in life, 
his country had rewarded him with the highest honor it could 
bestow. But the weight of his new duties were too heavy for 
the old soldier, and soon he laid his high office down as 
another old soldier had done nine years before. 



MILLARD FILLMORE 

THE THIRTEENTH PRESIDENT. 




THE SECOND-HAND PRESIDENT. 

As far away as 1723 we come 
across a man named Fillmore who 
did a brave and daring- deed. He 
was a fisherman, and the sloop in 
which he sailed was taken by a 
pirate vessel. A fine, strong sea- 
man was Fillmore, and the pirate, 
captain took him for one of his 
crew. But he refused to be a 
pirate, and he w^as treated harshly 
and cruelly. In the end, after 
several months, he and two others 
rose against the pirates when they 
were all drunk, killed four of them, and brought six others 
into Boston harbor. They were all hung, and the gun and 
sword, the gold rings and silver shoe buckles and other 
things, of the pirate captain were given as rewards to John 
Fillmore. 

He had a son named Nathaniel, to whom, in time, he 
left the pirate captain's silver-hilted sword and other relics. 
Nathaniel went into the wilderness and made himself a home 
near what is now Bennington, in the State of Vermont. He 
fought against the red men in the French and Indian War. 
In the Revolution he was one of General Stark's Green 



MILLARD FILLMORE. 



145 



i4^> MILLARD FILLMORE 

Mountain Boys. He was a lieutenant at the battle of Ben- 
nington. He lived till the end of the war of 1812. 

His son, also named Nathaniel, left Vermont for the wil- 
derness of western New York, and built himself a home near 
what is called Sumners Hill, in Cayuga County. Here his 
son Millard was born on January 7, 1800. It was a humble 
home to which the boy cftme. There was little chance for an 
education or any other advantage. He got a little schooling, 
of the poorest kind, and certainly did not do much reading, 
for there were only two books in the house, one of them a 
Bible and the other a hymn-book. But the child was a merry, 
good-tempered little fellow, who did not shed any tears for 
the want of books, and no doubt had a good time at play. 

He had some hard work to do on the farm, but it was a 
poor bit of ground, and the father thought that his son ought 
to learn a better business. So when the boy was fourteen he 
was sent to a place a hundred miles from home. Here he 
was to try his hand for a few months at "carding wool and 
dressing cloth." 

Young Fillmore did not take to the business, nor to his 
master either, for he was hard and severe. But he stayed out 
his months, and then he shouldered his knapsack and started 
out on foot through the wilderness for home, a hundred miles 
away. You may see from this that he was a boy of great 
pluck and energy. 

After he got home he went as apprentice to a place near 
by to learn the cloth and clothing business. The boy now 
began to show that he had a mind of his own. As soon as 
he got a little money he bought a small English dictionary, 
which he studied while at work. And there was a small 
library in the village whose books he eagerly read. In that 
way he got to know a great deal about history and other things. 



MILLARD FILLMORE 147 

He grew to be a very handsome youth, and showed 
already much grace and polish of manner. His reading had 
roused in him a new ambition, and a rich lawyer near by 
advised him to study law, and offered him the use of his own 
office and his law books. The boy jumped at the chance. 
He had three years still to serve at his trade, but he bought 
out the balance of the time from his master, giving him his 
note instead of money, and promising to pay it out of the 
money he might earn as a lawyer. So we see the growing 
statesman launched at nineteen in the study of the law. 

When he was twenty-one he went to Buffalo and there 
got into a good law office where he had an excellent chance. 
He paid his way by teaching school. You may see that the 
Bible and hymn-book in his father's home and the library in 
the village had borne good fruit. He was twenty-three years 
old when he began to practice law. He settled in the pretty 
little village of Aurora, and won his first suit, for which he 
was paid four dollars. Very likely he felt quite rich with his 
first earnings in his pocket. 

In three years he was making money enough to get 
married, and chose for his wife Mrs. Abigail Powers, a clergy- 
man's daughter, and a young lady of fine character and much 
good sense. Three years later he moved to Buffalo, where 
he began a prosperous practice. But certainly there was 
nothing in his life up to that time to show that, in little more 
than twenty years later on, he would be President of the 
United States. 

Yet he now began to make his way in politics. He was 
sent to the Legislature and made some good speeches there. 
In 1832 he was elected to Congress. He continued to serve 
in Congress for three terms with an intermission. He was 
elected as Governor of his State and served with honor. 



148 MILLARD FILLMORE 

A new and much greater honor was in waiting for him. 
In 1844, when the Whig party had its National Convention, 
the members for New York spoke of Millard Fillmore for 
Vice-President. In 1848, when Zachary Taylor, the old hero 
fresh from victory in Mexico, was named by the Whigs for 
President, Millard Fillmore was named for Vice-President 
The old soldier was a slave-holder, and it was thought the 
Northern lawyer would win many votes that might be lost. 
So the rugged Southern warrior and the polished Northern 
lawyer, were harnessed together and went briskly to the win- 
ning post. Taylor was elected President and Fillmore Vice- 
President of the United States.' 

Sixteen months passed by and the soldier President went 
to a soldier's grave. The Buffalo lawyer was President. 
Fortune had come to his side. As in the case of Tyler, he 
had risen to an honor which he probably never could have 
reached if death had not cleared the way for him. 

You will be interested in an amusing little anecdote of 
President Fillmore. Soon after he took the oath of office he 
concluded that he must have a new carriage. He was told 
of one that could be bought, belonging to a gentleman who 
was about to leave Washington. There was about the White 
House an old Irish servant named Edward Moran, who was 
full of ready wit and had been much liked by President Taylor. 
The old chap did not quite approve of the change that had 
been made in Presidents. 

When Fillmore went to look at the carriage he took 
"Old Edward" with him. They inspected it closely and con- 
cluded it would do. 

"This is all very well, Edward," said the President, with 
a smile, "but how will it do for the President of the United 
States to ride in a second-hand carriage ? " 



MILLARD FILLMORE 149 

"Sure that's all right, your Honor," said the old man, 
with a twinkling eye. ** You're ownly a sicond hand Prisi- 
dent, you know." 

Did Fillmore get angry at this remark? Not he. He 
was good-natured enough to laugh at it heartily, and he told 
it in after years as a good joke. 

After leaving the Presidential chair, Mr. Fillmore spent 
much of the remainder of his life among his books and his 
friends. He visited Europe two years afterward and had a 
flattering reception. And after he came home the " Know 
Nothing" party nominated him for President, but he carried 
only one State, the State of Maryland. 

We cannot end without a word for Mrs. Fillmore. For 
a woman of her quiet habits and delicate health the duties of 
her position as mistress of the White House had been very 
trying. One serious deficiency she found. She was a great 
reader and the White House was nearly empty of books. To 
please her. Congress was asked to make an appropriation for 
a library. This was the beginning of the fine library which is 
now to be seen there. Her husband's term as President 
ended in March, 1853, and she died in the same month. Soon 
after her only daughter followed her to the grave. 

Mr. Fillmore married again, his second wife being a Miss 
Mcintosh of Buffalo. After that his life moved on serenely. 
The Civil War came and went, but he took no part and had 
not a word to say. Many thought that his sympathies were 
with the South. But he had sunk out of the channel of poli- 
tics, and neither party troubled itself about what he might say 
or think. He lived on at his handsome home in Buffalo, amid 
his friends and his books, and died there on March 8, 1874. 



FRANKLIN PIERCE 



THE FOURTEENTH PRESIDENT. 



"THE NEW HAMPSHIRE MAN." 

I do not think there are manv of 
my readers who have not read the 
story of the famous ride of Paul 
Revere, on that historic night of April 
1 8, 1775, when the British were 
marching from Boston to Lexington 
and Concord. As he rode along he 
gave warning to the people that the 
British troops were coming, and 
many a patriot began to put his gun 
in order for the coming fight. 

Other messengers than Paul 
Revere were sent out by the patriots 
of Boston, and rode to the north, the west and the south, 
stopping before every farm house and in every hamlet to 
shout out the news they brought. They told the story of the 
shots at Lexington and the fight at Concord, and on every 
side farmers and farmers' boys seized their muskets and with 
stern faces took the road to Boston. 

Among these was a strong and hardy young fellow of 
seventeen, a boy in years but a man in spirit. With his 
father's old gun over his shoulder and his powder horn by his 
side, he trudged resolutely onward to Boston, and here he 




FRANKLIN PIERCE. 



150 



FRANKLIN PIERCE 151 

soon distinguished himself by the brave way in which he 
fought at Bunker Hill. He fought as well in other fields, and 
when the war ended and the old Continentals were disbanded, 
Benjamin Pierce — for that was his name — was mustered out 
with the full rank of captain and with two hundred dollars in 
his pocket, which was all the Government had to pay him. 

The boy of seventeen was now a man, and a strong and 
vigorous one. He had been brought up a farmer and decided 
that he must have a farm. So he set out north, looking for 
good and cheap land, and one day found a place to his liking, 
with plenty of water and good soil. It was in the State of 
New Hampshire, near the present town of Hillsborough. 

After some hunting he found the owner in a log hut with 
a small clearing around it. 

"Would you like to sell this land ?" he asked. 

" Don't keer much if I do," said the backwoodsman. 

"How much is there of it ?" 

"A good hundred and fifty acres and this patch of it 
cleared." 

"Well, I'll give you a hundred and fifty dollars for it." 

The frontiersman, who wanted to go deeper into the 
wilderness, as all frontiersmen did, took the offer, and for 
one dollar an acre, with log-house and clearing thrown in, 
Benjamin Pierce got his farm. 

He soon cleared and added to it; other settlers came ; farms 
were opened around him ; villages grew up ; it became quite 
a settlement, and in (this Captain Pierce was the leading man. 
He was a bluff, hearty, kind-hearted man, liberal and hospita- 
ble, and won wide esteem in New Hampshire. He was made ' 
a general in the militia, was sent to the Legislature, was 
elected sheriff of his county, and in 1827 and again in 1829, 
was made governor of the State. 



152 FRANKLIN PIERCE 

He married early and had eight children, five sons and 
three daughters. It is with one of these sons that we have to 
do, Franklin Pierce, born at Hillsborough, November 22, 
1804. He was a boy after his father's heart, full of spirit, fond 
of fun and of out-door sport, and a favorite with all who knew 
him. He had plenty of schooling, ending his education in 
Bowdoin College. Here he grew very popular in his class, 
but likely not with his teachers, for he wasted two years of his 
time in idleness and dissipation. The college boys formed a 
military company and made him the captain, and he cut up 
such lawless pranks with his company that he came near 
being sent home in disgrace. 

But he made a good friend of Zenas Caldwell, a studious 
and religious boy, who gained such influence over wild Frank- 
lin Pierce, that the young rebel began to study hard to make 
up for lost time, and he graduated with fair honor. Among 
his schoolmates w^ere John P. Hale, who became well known 
as a United States Senator, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, the 
famous novelist, who was a private in his military company. 

With all his wildness, Franklin Pierce was a lovable 
boy, a favorite with everybody. He had a natural courtesy 
and a grace of speech and manner which won him friends on 
all sides. These qualities clung to him through life. 

When he left college he studied law, as did so many who 
were to become Presidents. He became a good lawyer, 
though he lost his first case. But he showed his spirit by 
saying, " I will try nine hundred and ninety-nine cases, if 
clients trust me ; and if I fail, as I have to-day, I will try the 
thousandth." Men like that do not fail. 

Young Pierce soon became an active politician. In those 
days New England was a centre of political excitement. His 
father was an ardent believer in Thomas Jefferson and his 



FRANKLIN PIERCE 153 

party, and the boy followed in his footsteps. He became a 
Democrat in grain. He was elected or appointed to many 
: offices of trust and honor, serving in the Legislature of his own 
State and in both Houses of Congress. 

Franklin Pierce married in 1834, his wife being Jane 
Means Appleton, the daughter of a President of Bowdoin Col- 
lege. She was a young lady of fine intelligence and estima- 
ble character, but highly sensitive in organization, which was 
due to her delicate health. They made a happy and har- 
monious pair, for he was deeply devoted to her, and he seemed 
to prefer to live at home and attend to his law business, to 
holding any office. 

But now came an event that took him from home. 
When Texas asked to be admitted to the Union, and the 
country was divided on that question. Pierce, like a good 
Democrat, and a strong opponent of the Aiiti-slavery party, 
was warm in its favor. He even declared that if it should 
bring on w^ar with Mexico he was ready to enlist as a private 
in a Concord company. That was a very modest start, 
but soon after the President appointed him colonel of a 
regiment, and before he got to Mexico he was made Brigadier- 
General. Don't you think that was going up pretty rapidly, 
from private to general before he had seen a shot fired ? 

At the battle of Contreras his horse got frightened and 
threw him heavily among some rocks. He was severely hurt, 
but stayed with his men. The next day, when he attempted 
to march as usual, he fainted from his hurt This was 
' brought up against him when he ran for the Presidency, and 
some ugly things were said, but General Grant, who was there, 
says that he showed himself a brave man and a gentleman. 

Soon after that the war ended and he came home. The 
people of Concord gave him a hearty reception and the 



154 FRANKLIN PIERCE 

Legislature voted him a sword of honor. He went back to his 
practice, but he kept up his interest in politics. And he was 
so strong a Democrat and an upholder of slavery that the 
people of the South looked on him as one of their special 
friends, a Northern man with Southern principles. 

Time went on. General Taylor was elected President. 
He died and Fillmore took his place. Then came 1852 and 
a new election was at hand. The Whigs had won in 1848, 
but they were very weak now, and the Democrats were in the 
lead. When the Democratic National Convention met, the 
names of many statesmen were brought before it. There were 
Lewis Cass, James Buchanan, William L. Marcy, Stephen A. 
Douglas, Samuel Houston, and a dozen others. For four 
days the balloting went on, but no one got enough votes. 

Then, on the fourth day, some one cast a vote for General 
Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire. That took well, espe- 
cially with the delegates from the South, and soon he had the 
States of New Hampshire and Virginia in his favor. After a 
dozen more ballots all opposition went down, and he was 
unanimously nominated for President. 

No man in the country was more surprised than himself 
He did not dream of such a thing. A friend met him when 
he was out driving in his carriage, and shouted out to him : 

** General, have you heard the news from Baltimore?" 

*' No," said Pierce in a quiet tone. " Who is nominated ?" 

" General Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire. Let me 
congratulate you." * 

"I nominated? Well, you could not congratulate a 
more astonished man." 

The nomination was sure to be an election, for the Whigs 
had grown very weak. They carried only four States. Twenty- 



FRANKLIN PIERCE 155 

seven went for the Democrats, and Franklin Pierce was Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

He had a stormy time before him. The Missouri Com- 
promise was repealed and the territories left open for slavery. 
Then the fight in Kansas came on and blood was shed in the 
slavery contest. The President's sympathy was with the pro- 
slavery party, but the anti-slavery feeling in the North gradu- 
ally got together in the new Republican party, which was soon 
to gain a great victory. The country was very prosperous 
during his four years in office, and all looked well for the 
Democracy in 1856, when James Buchanan was elected to 
succeed Franklin Pierce. 

When Pierce left Washington in 1857, he went to a 
childless home. The last of his children, a bright boy of thir- 
teen, had been killed in a railroad accident in 1852. His wife, 
too, was growing more feeble. He traveled in Europe for 
her health, but she gradually sank, and died in 1863. 

Once more Franklin Pierce's voice was heard strongly 
and earnestly before the people. In 1861, when volunteers 
were gathering in Concord, Pierce, the Democratic ex-Presi- 
dent, made a ringing war speech at a great mass-meeting, 
calling on the people to rally for the Union. He lived to see 
its end, dying quietly and peacefully, on October 8, 1869. 



JAMES BUCHANAN 



THE FIFTEENTH PRESIDENT. 




THE MAN FROM WHEATLAND. 

In 1783, the year in which the 
American Revolution ended, James 
Buchanan, a young Scotch-Irish far- 
mer from the County of Donegal, 
landed in Philadelphia. He had 
come to make his home in the land 
of promise beyond the seas. After 
looking around him for a good loca- 
tion, he settled at a place with the 
queer name of vStony Butter, "in a 
mountain gorge at the foot of the 
eastern ridge of the Alleghanies." 
Here he got a position in a store, and 
did so well that in five years he had a store of his own — and 
a wife, too, for he got married that year. In 1791, on April 
23d, his first son was born, and was given his own name, that 
of James Buchanan. It was a name that he would make 
widely and well known. 

Young James was a boy of promise and a good student. 
At fourteen he was ready to enter Dickinson College, in Car- 
lisle, Pennsylvania. He graduated at the head of his class. 
Then he studied law, and in 1812, when he was twenty-one 
years old, was admitted to the bar. 
156 



JAMES BUCHANAN. 



JAMES BUCHANAN 157 

In 18 1 4 there came an exciting time, when the British 
plundered and burned Washington. The people were furious 
when they heard of it. A great meeting was held at Lan- 
caster, in Pennsylvania, and a young lawyer, who had never 
made a public speech, now burst out in an address full of fire 
and patriotic spirit. His name was James Buchanan. As 
soon as he was done speaking he volunteered in a company 
that was organized on the spot. They got out their horses, 
called themselves dragoons, and rode away for Baltimore ; 
but the British were gone before they got there, and they 
were discharged with honor. 

Young Buchanan's fiery speech made him very popular 
in Lancaster, and he was elected soon after to the Pennsyl- 
vania Legislature. Here he made another ardent speech, 
demanding that soldiers should be enlisted for the war and 
properly supported. He said that Congress had not done its 
duty, and the people must take the matter in their own hands. 

He did not know then that the war was at an end and a 
treaty of peace signed. At any rate, what he said was to the 
point and made him very prominent in the House. 

From that time the Lancaster lawyer went on rapidly. 
His law business grew fast, and he was looked on as one of 
the leading lawyers of the State. He was sent twice to the 
Legislature and in 1820 was elected to Congress. Here he 
remained for ten years, his political feelings changing from a 
Federalist until he became a strong Democrat. 

Now let us go back to his home affairs. All our Presi- 
dents have had their love stories, and Buchanan had his. 
But his was a very sad one. He fell in love in 181 8 with a 
beautiful girl, Anne C. Coleman, the daughter of a wealthy 
citizen of Lancaster. They were betrothed, and all went hap- 
pily till the summer of 1819, when a letter came from her, 



158 JAMES BUCHANAN 

breaking ofif the engagement, and nearly breaking his heart. 
Some evil tongue had made sad mischief between the lovers. 

Whatever the trouble, the lady refused to be reconciled, 
and a few months afterward, while on a visit to Philadelphia, 
she suddenly died. The shock was a great one to Buchanan, 
who loved her dearly. "My prospects are all cut off," he 
wrote to her father, "and I feel that my happiness is buried 
with her in the grave. The time will come when you will 
discover that she, as well as I, have been much abused. God 
foreive the authors of it." It was his last love affair, and he 
lived and died unwedded. 

In the famous Presidential election of 1824, Buchanan 
used all his influence in favor of General Jackson for the 
Presidency. The old hero of New Orleans never forgot his 
friends, and when, four years later, he won his seat, he repaid 
Buchanan by making him United States Minister to Russia. 

Buchanan was just the man for the place. He was 
refined, courteous and polished, knew how to yield gracefully 
when it was wise to do so, and was of a disposition and 
manner that fitted him for the associations of court life. He 
obtained a treaty of commerce from Russia, and won the 
favor of 'the Czar, who asked him, when the time came to 
leave, " to tell President Jackson to send him another minister 
like himself." 

When he came home in 1834 he was elected to one 
of the highest offices in the gift of the people, that of Senator 
of the United States. He had now become a decided Demo- 
crat and a strong advocate of State-rights. In 1844 James K 
Polk was made President, and in forming his Cabinet he chose j 
Mr. Buchanan for the most important office in it, that of Sec- 
retary of State. 

The name of James Buchanan was first brought up for 



il 



JAMES BUCHANAN 159 

President in 1852. But it was one among more than a dozen, 
and as no one was strong enough to beat the others, a new 
name, that of Frankhn Pierce, was brought up and carried 
through. When the new President came into office, he 
appointed Buchanan minister to England. 

The courtly Pennsylvanian was well received at the Court 
of St. James ; but he had his troubles, for a question arose 
that made some annoyance for the ministers abroad and some 
fun for the journalists of the United States. Up to this time 
our ministers had worn a simple uniform which complied with 
the court dress regulations in Europe. But now Mr. Marcy, 
the new Secretary of State, sent them word that they must 
appear "in the simple dress of an American citizen." 

What was this "simple dress?" One writer said it 
must mean war paint and leggings, with feathers, perhaps. 
Another suggested a red shirt and tow trousers. Those who 
had been military officers put on their uniform. Some kept 
away from court. Minister Buchanan kept away, too, for a 
time. Then he got over the difficulty by adding a sword to 
his swallow-tail black suit. 

It cannot be said that Buchanan enjoyed his new position 
any too much. There were other questions to be settled — 
ugly ones, some of them — and a good deal of bad feeling 
arose between the two countries. For that reason he was 
glad when the time was up and he could return home. 

He was soon to be wanted for a higher post at home, 
for when the time came in 1856 for another Presidential elec- 
tion, it was soon seen that Mr. Buchanan was the strongest 
man in his party, so he was nominated and elected. A terrible 
time lay before the new President. None before him had been 
in so desperate a strait The country was fast drifting into 



i6o JAMES BUCHANAN 

war. It was impossible for him to stop it, and it cannot be 
said that he made any strong efforts to do so. 

Meanwhile the courtesies and amenities of the White 
House went on as usual. President Buchanan had no wife, 
but his beautiful and accomplished niece. Miss Harriet Lane, 
who had been with him in London, now ably took up the 
duties of mistress of the Presidential mansion, and performed 
them with a grace that has never been surpassed. Among 
those received by her was the Prince of Wales, now King 
Edward of England. 

In i860 the deluge came. The Republican party was 
triumphant and elected its candidate, Abraham Lincoln, to 
the Presidential chair. Now was the time for a resolute soul 
and a strong hand in the executive office. An Andrew Jack- 
son or a man of his kind was sadly needed. But James 
Buchanan was utterly unfit for the exigency, and he let the 
South drift into secession while scarcely lifting his hand to 
hinder or prevent. 

No doubt, his position was a very trying and difficult one. 
The wisest of men would have been in doubt as to what was 
best to do. But for a crisis like this no weaker man could 
have been found. He helped neither North nor South ; he 
only waited and watched, and when his successor took his 
place he found the situation made very much worse by the 
lack of energy in James Buchanan. 

The final years of Buchanan's life were passed at his 
home at Wheatland, near Lancaster, amid leisure, w^ealth and 
affection. He saw the end of the Civil War and was glad 
enough that the Union was preserv^ed, though very sorry, w^e 
may be sure, that he had had the misfortune to be President 
in such perilous times. On June i, 1868, the old statesman 
and ex-President passed away. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



THE SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT. 



THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR. 

Did you ever read a fairy story 
about a poor boy who became a 
-prince? If you would like I can 
tell you as good a story as that — 
a true story about a poor boy who 
became president — and that is better 
than being a prince. The boy I am 
going to speak about was as poor 
as any one that ever lived in Amer- 
ica ; but he rose to a grander posi- 
tion than any prince or king ever 
reached. Listen to the story of his 
^ life. There was once a very poor 

lan who lived in a miserable little log cabin in the wild part 
f what was then called "away out West." It was on a stony, 
/eedy hillside, at a place called Nolin's Creek, in the State 
)f Kentucky. In that log cabin, on the twelfth day of Feb- 
uary, in the year 1809, a little baby was born. He was 
lamed Abraham Lincoln. 

I don't believe you ever saw a much poorer or meaner 
place in which to be born and brought up than that little log 

f . cabin. Abraham Lincoln's father was ignorant and lazy. He 
'could not read and he hated to work. Their house had no 
windows, it had no floor, it had none of the things you have 

II l6i 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



l62 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



in your pleasant homes. In all America no baby was ever 
born with fewer comforts and poorer surroundings than little 
Abraham Lincoln. He grew from a baby to a homely little 
boy, and to a homelier young man. His clothes never 
fitted him ; he never, in all his life, went to school but one 
year; he had to work hard, he could play but little, and 
many a day he knew what it was to be cold and hungry and 




EARLY HOME OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, GENTRTVILLE, INDIANA 

almost homeless. But with all this he had that in him which 
makes a man great. 

His father kept moving about from place to place, living 
almost always in the wild regions. He went from Kentucky 
to Indiana and then to Illinois. Sometimes their home would 
be a log cabin, sometimes it was just a hut with only three 
sides boarded up. Abraham Lincoln was a neglected and 
forlorn little fellow. His mother died when he was only eight 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 163 

years old. Then Abraham and his sister Sarah were worse 
off than ever. But pretty soon his father married a second 
wife, and Abraham's new mother was a good and wise woman, 
which was a very good thing for the boy. 

She took care of him and gave him new clothes ; she 
taught him how to make the most and do the best with the few 
things he had and the chances that came to him ; she made 
him wish for better things ; she helped him fix himself up, 
and encouraged him to read and study. 

This last was what Abraham liked most of all, and he 
was reading and studying all the time. There were not many 
books where he lived, but he borrowed all he could lay his hands 
on, and read them over and over. He studied all the hard 
things he could find books about, from arithmetic and gram- 
mar to surveying and law. He wrote on a shingle, when he 
could not get paper, and by the light of a log fire, when he 
could not get candles. He worked out questions in arithme- 
tic on the back of a wooden shovel, and when it was full of 
figures he scraped them off and began again. He read and 
studied in the fields, when he was not working ; on wood- 
piles, when he was chopping wood ; or in the kitchen, rocking 
the cradle of any baby whose father or mother had a book to 
lend him. His favorite position for studying was to be 
stretched out like the long boy he was, on an old chair, in 
front of an open fire. Here he would read and write and 
cipher, after the day's work was over, until at last he grew to 
be one of the best scholars of all the boys round. You may 
see from this what hard study will do, even without teachers. 

Once he borrowed a book of an old farmer. It was a 
" Life of Washington." He read it and read it again, and 
when he was not reading it he put it safely away between the 
logs that made the wall of his log-cabin home. But one day 



1 64 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

there came a hard storm ; it beat against the cabin and soaked 
in between the logs and spoiled the book. Young Abraham 
did not try to hide the book nor get out of the trouble. He 
never did a mean thing of that sort He took the soaked and 
ruined book to the old farmer, told him how it happened, and 
asked how he could pay for it. 

"Wall," said the old farmer, "'t'aint much account to me 
now. You pull fodder for three days and the book is yours." 

So the boy set to work, and for three days " pulled fod- 
der " to feed the farmer's cattle. 

He dried and smoothed and pressed out the "Life of 
Washington," for it was his now. And that is the way he 
bought his first book. 

He was the strongest boy in all the country around. He 
could mow the most, plow the deepest, split wood the best, 
toss the farthest, run the swiftest, jump the highest and 
wrestle the best of any boy or man in the neighborhood. 
Bjat though he was so strong, he was always so kind, so 
gentle, so obliging, so just and so helpful that everybody 
liked him, few dared to stand up against him, and all came 
to him to get work done, settle disputes, or find help in 
quarrels or trouble. 

So he grew amid the woods and farms, to be a bright, 
willing, obliging, active, good-natured, fun-loving boy. He 
had to work early and late, and when he was a big boy he 
hired out to work for the farmers. He could do anything, 
from splitting rails for fences to rocking the baby's cradle ; or 
from hoeing corn in the field to telling stories in the kitchen. 

And how he did like to tell funny stories ! Not always 
funny, either. For, you see, he had read so much and 
remembered things so well that he could tell stories to make 
people laugh and stories to make people think. He liked to 




MRS. GRANT VISITING GENERAL GRANT AT CITY POINT BELOW RICHMOND, 
NEAR THE CLOSE OF THE WAR 




THE PEACE COMMISSIONERS 

Three commissioners from the Confederacy suggesting terms of Peace to Presidcn; Lincoln and Secretary 
Seward in Fortress Monroe, January, 1865. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



165 



recite poetry and " speak pieces," and do all the things that 
make a person good company for every one. He would sit 
in front of the country store or on the counter inside and tell 
of all the funny things he had seen, or heard, or knew. He 
would make up poetry about the men and women of the 
neighborhood, or 
make a speech upon 
things that the people 
were interested in, 
until all the boys and 
girls, and the men 
and women too, said 
"Abe Lincoln," as 
they called him, knew 
everything worth 
knowing, and was an 
"awful smart chap." 
He worked on 
farms, ran a ferry- 
boat across the river, 
split rails for farm C^>^ 
fences, kept store, did 
all sorts of "odd 
jobs" for the farmers 
and their wives, and 
\vas, in fact, wdiat we 
call a regular "Jack 
of all trades." And 
all the time, though he was jolly and liked a good time, he 
kept studying, studying, studying, until, as I have told you, 
the people where he lived said he knew more than anybody 
else. Some of them even said that they knew he would be 




YOUNG ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 
STUDYING BY THE LIGHT OF THE FIREPLACE. 



i66 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

President of the United States some day, he was so smart. 
Wasn't that wonderful for a boy brought up as he was and 
with such a father as he had ? 

The work he did most of all was splitting great logs into 
rails for fences. He could do as much as three men at this 
work ; he was so strong. With one blow he could bury the 
axe in the wood. Once he split enough rails for a woman to 
pay for a suit of clothes she made him, and all the farmers 
around liked to have "Abe Lincoln" split their rails. 

He could take the heavy axe by the end of the handle 
and hold it out straight from his shoulder. That is some- 
thing that only a very strong-armed person can do. In fact, 
as I have told you, he was the champion strong-boy of his 
neighborhood, and, though he was never quarrelsome or a 
fighter, he did enjoy a friendly wrestle. He made two trips 
down the long Ohio and the broad Mississippi rivers to the 
big city of New Orleans. He sailed on a clumsy, square, flat- 
bottomed scow, called a flat-boat. Lincoln worked the for- 
ward oar on the flat-boat, to guide the big craft through the 
river currents and over snags. 

After that Lincoln tried store-keeping. He had already 
been a clerk in a country store ; now he set up a store of his 
own. He was not very successful. He loved to read and 
study better than to wait on customers, and his business was 
not looked after very well, and he had a partner that was lazy 
and good for nothing, and who got him into trouble. But, 
through it all, Lincoln never did a mean or dishonest thing. 
He paid all the debts of the store, though it took him years to 
do this, and he could be so completely trusted to do the right 
thing that all the people round about came to call him 
" Honest Abe Lincoln." That's a good nick-name, isn't it ? 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 167 

After Lincoln got through keeping store he was so much 
Hked by the people, and they thought him so smart and such 
a fine speaker, that they chose him to go to the Legislature of 
Illinois again and again, and here he began to express in 
many ways his disapproval of slavery. 

After he served several terms in the Legislature he 
became a lawyer — he had already been studying law, you 
know. He was a bright, smart and successful lawyer. What 
is better still, he was a good and honest one. He never 
would take a case he did not believe in, and once when 
a man came to engage him to help get some money from 
a poor widow, Lincoln refused, and gave the man such a 
scolding that he did not try it again. So Mr. Lincoln grew 
to be one of the best lawyers in all that Western country. 

Because he was so honest and thoughtful in speech and 
action, Lincoln rose to be what is called an able orator and 
statesman. He and another famous man, named Douglas, 
looked at things differently, and they had long discussions 
about politics and slavery. These discussions were held 
where all the people could hear them, in big halls or out of 
doors, and crowds of people went to listen to them, so that 
very soon everybody "out West" and people all over the 
country had heard of Lincoln and Douglas. 

They had much to say about slavery, which everybody 
was then talking and thinking about. Douglas said that slave- 
holders should have the right to take their slaves into new 
States or Territories, and Lincoln said they should not. 
There were two great parties in the country, the Democrats, 
who said the same as Douglas did, and the Republicans, who 
said the same as Lincoln, and between these parties there was 
much bad feeling. They fought with words in Congress 
long before they began to fight with guns in the field. 



1 68 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

At last came a time when the people of the United States 
were to choose a new President. And what do you think ? 
These two men were picked out by the opposite parties to be 
voted for by the people — Lincoln by the Republicans, and 
Douglas by the Democrats. You may see by this that they 
had both become famous, though they lived in a back county, 
far "out West." 

When election day came the Republicans won. The 
poor little back- woods boy, the rail-splitter, the flat-boatman, 
the farm-hand, was raised to the highest place over all the 
people. Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the 
United States. Is not that as good as the fairy story of the 
poor boy who became a prince ? It is better, for it is true. 

But there were terrible times coming, and Lincoln was 
to be President through four years of dreadful war. For 
the people of the South, who owned the slaves then in the 
country, said that the Republican party wanted to rob them 
of their slaves and that they would not live under a Republi- 
can President. They would take their States out of the Union 
and form a new Union of their own. 

Lincoln, you may be sure, was much troubled. He 
begged the people not to quarrel, but he said that the LInion 
must not be broken. The people of the South cared very 
little for what he said. They tried to secede — that is, to draw 
out of the Union — and they fired on a fort over which waved 
the flag of the United States. That stirred up the people of 
the North, and soon there were drilling, and marching, and 
fighting, and the whole country was full of the spirit of war. 

For four dreadful years the war went on. Many despe- 
rate and terrible battles were fought, for each side was eager 
to win. Neither side would give in, and brave soldiers, under 
brave leaders, did many gallant deeds under that terrible 



I 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 169 

necessity that men call war. This war was especially dread- 
ful, because it was like two brothers fighting with each other, 
and you know how dreadful that must be. There are times 
when brothers grow to hate each other more than strangers, 
and that was the way then between the North and South. It 
is not the way to-day, for the North and South have become 
like true brothers again. 

During all those four years of war Abraham Lincoln lived 
in the President's house at Washington — the White House, 
as it is called. He had but one wish — to save the Union. He 
did not mean to let war, nor trouble, nor wicked men destroy 
the nation that Washington had founded, if he could help it. 
He was always ready to say, "We forgive you," if the men 
of the South would only stop fighting and say, "We are 
sorry." But they would not do this, much as the great, kind, 
patient, loving President wished them to do it. 

That he was kind and loving all through that terrible war 
we know very well. War is a dreadful thing, and when it is 
going on many hard and cruel things are done. As the 
wounded soldiers lay in their hospitals, after some dreadful 
battle had torn and maimed them, the good President would 
walk through the long lines of cot-beds, talking kindly with 
them, and would send them good things, and do everything he 
could to relieve their sufferings and make them comfortable. 

In war, too, you know, even brave soldiers often get tired 
of the fighting and the privations and the delay, and wish to 
go home to see their wives and children. But they cannot 
do so, unless their captain permits. So sometimes they get 
impatient and run away. This is called desertion, and when 
a deserter is caught and brought back to the army he is shot. 

Now President Lincoln was so loving and tender-hearted 
that he could not bear to have any of his soldiers shot because 



I70 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

they had tried to go home. So, where the case was not too 
bad, he would write a paper saying the soldier must not be 
shot. This is called a pardon, and often when a weak or 
timid soldier was arrested and sentenced to be shot as a 
deserter, his friends would hurry to the good President and 
beg him to give the man a pardon. 

He almost always did it. " I don't see how it will do 
the man any good to shoot him," he would say. "Give me 
the paper, I'll sign it," and so the deserter would go free, and 
perhaps make a better soldier than ever, because the good 
President had saved him. 

The question of slavery kept coming up during the war. 
Many men at the North asked Lincoln to set all the slaves in 
the land free, but he said : "The first thing to do is to save 
the Union ; after that we'll see about slavery." 

Some of them did not like that. They said the President 
was too slow. But he knew very well what he was about. 
He waited patiently until the right time came. He saw that 
the South was not willing to give in, and that something 
must be done to show them that the North was just as deter- 
mined as they w^ere. So, after a great victory had been won 
by the soldiers of the Union, Abraham Lincoln wrote a paper 
and sent it out to the world, saying that on the first day of 
January, 1863, all slaves in America should be free men and 
women — what we call emancipated — and that, forever after, 
there should be no such thing as slavery in free America. 

It was a great thing to do. It was a greater thing to do 
it just as Lincoln did it, and while the world lasts no one 
will ever forget the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham 
Lincoln. 

Still the war went on. But, little by little, the South was 
growing weaker, and at last, in the month of April, 1865, the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 171 

end came. The Southern soldiers gave up the fight. The 
North was victorious. The Union was saved. 

You may be sure that the great and good President was 
glad. He did not think that he had done so very much. It 
was the people who had done it all, he said. But the people 
knew that Lincoln had been the leader and captain who had 
led them safely through all their troubles, and they cheered 
and praised him accordingly. As for the black people who 
had been set free, they blessed him for saving them. 

When President Lincoln at last stood in the streets of 
Richmond, which had been the capital of the Southern States, 
he was almost worshiped by the colored people. They 
danced, they sang, they cried, they prayed, they called down 
blessings on the head of the man who had set them free. 
They knelt at his feet, while the good President, greatly 
moved by what he saw, bowed pleasantly to the shouting 
throng, with tears of joy and pity rolling down his care- 
wrinkled face. Don't you think it must have been a great and 
blessed moment for this good and great and noble man ? But 
it was the same all over the land. There were cheering and 
shouting and thanksgiving everywhere for a re-united nation, 
and even the South, weary with four years of unsuccessful 
war, welcomed peace and quiet once more. 

Then, who in all the world was greater than Abraham 
Lincoln ? He had done it all, people said, by his wisdom, his 
patience and his determination, and the splendid way in which 
he had directed everything from his home in the White House. 

The year before, in the midst of the war, he had been 
elected President for the second time. "It is not safe to swap 
horses when you are crossing a stream," he said. So the 
people voted not to " swap horses." 

Lincoln made a beautiful speech to the people when he 



172 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

was again made President He spoke only of love and kind- 
ness for the men of the South, and while he said the North 
must fight on to the end and save the Union, they must do it 
not hating the South, but loving it. And this is the way he 
ended that famous speech. Remember his words, boys and 
girls, they are glorious: "With malice toward none, with 
charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to 
see the right, let us finish the work we are in . . . and 
achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves 
and with all nations." 

But, just when the war was ended, when peace came to 
the land again ; when all men saw what a grand and noble 
and loving and strong man the great President was ; when it 
looked as if, after four years of worry, weariness and work, he 
could at last rest from his labors and be happy, a wicked, 
foolish and miserable man shot the President, behind his back. 
And, on the morning of the fifteenth of April, in the year 1865, 
just after the end of the war, Abraham Lincoln died. 

Then how all the land mourned ! South, as well as 
North, wept for the dead President. All the world sorrowed, 
and men and women began to see what a great and noble 
man had been taken from them. 

The world has not got over it yet. Every year and 
every day only make Abraham Lincoln greater, nobler, 
mightier. No boy ever, in all the world, rose higher from 
poor beginnings. No man who ever lived did more for the 
world than Abraham Lincoln, the American. He saw what 
was right, and he did it ; he knew what was true, and he said 
it ; he felt what was just, and he kept to it. So he stands 
to-day, for justice, truth and right. 




"^"li^e^^ 



^I'S^^" 










PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1850 TO 1877 




«f*'^,^^*fl/50/. 



W«^«o> 



V<'^"- \r91 



PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1877 TO 1901 



ANDREW JOHNSON 

THE SEVENTEENTH PRESIDENT. 




THE TAILOR WHO BECAME PRESIDENT. 

There are many things which 
have had to do with making men 
Presidents of the United States, but 
it was not until April, 1865, that 
murder was one of those things. 
In that fair month, just after the 
Civil War came to its end, and 
peace and happiness seemed ready 
again to settle down upon the land, 
the foul hand of an assassin took 
from us one of the best Presidents 
we had ever known, the revered 
Abraham Lincoln. Then according 
to law, Andrew Johnson, the Vice-President, became President. 
He and Abraham Lincoln, who were elected together to 
these two great offices, both began life as very poor boys. 
Johnson began, in one way, lower than Lincoln, for he did 
not even know how to read and write until after he was six- 
teen years old, and by that age Lincoln had read many books 
and was getting to be what the people called learned. 

Andrew Johnson was born in the city of Raleigh, North 
Carolina, on the 29th of September, 1808. Like Lincoln, he 
was born in a small log-cabin. His parents belonged to that 
class known as "poor white trash," whom even the slaves of 
the South looked down on and despised. But his father 

173 



ANDREW JOHNSON. 



1 74 ANDRE W JOHNSON 

must have been a good and brave man, for he was drowned 
in trying to save a friend who had fallen overboard. 

Little Andrew was then only four years old. His mother 
had to work hard to keep both of them alive, and he had to 
help all he could, so he had no chance to go to school. He 
was only ten years old when he was made a tailor's appren- 
tice, and he worked hard for five years before he ever heard 
a man read. In those days there was not much education 
for the poor, and hardly any at all in the South. 

When the ignorant prentice boy heard a man read to 
the tailors he thought it was wonderful. It seemed to him 
almost like magic. A strong wish came to him to do this 
wonderful thing himself, and he got some of the men in the 
shop to teach him his letters. He was quick to learn them, 
for he had a very good mind. 

But Andrew Johnson did not get what we may call an 
education until he was eighteen years old, and then he owed 
it to a good woman whom he made his wife. His mother and 
he had moved to Greenville, a small town in the mountain 
part of Tennessee, and here he did the best thing in his life, 
for he met and married a bright young girl who was well 
educated and had read a great many books. 

The young couple were poor enough, but they both 
wanted to get on in life, and the young wife, who w^as a very 
attractive and ambitious girl, set herself to teaching her hus- 
band. She read to him while he worked at his trade, and in 
the evenings she became an earnest teacher and he became an 
eager pupil. In that way he soon got something of an educa- 
tion. He had a very good memory and held on to all that 
was read to him or that he read himself, and few boys ever 
got along more rapidly than the poor young tailor under the 
careful teaching of his wife. 



ANDREW JOHNSON 175 

Young Johnson soon began to take part in affairs in his 
town. From the first he was on the side of the poor. He 
was one of them, and knew all they had to bear. And he 
soon showed that he was a born orator. He could speak in 
a sharp and fiery manner that took with all who heard it, and 
the people who lived near gathered in numbers to hear him. 
When he was only twenty they elected him for one of their 
aldermen, and when he was twenty-two he was made Mayor 
of Greenville. That was getting along very fast for the boy 
who had first begun to read six years before. 

And now we come to the story of the rapid way the 
tailor's apprentice climbed upward. When he was twenty- 
seven his friends, the common people, sent him to the Ten- 
nessee Legislature, first to the House and afterward to the 
Senate. That was not honor enough for their favorite, and 
he was sent to Congress in 1843 ^^d kept there for ten years. 
In 1853 came another great lift, for he was elected Governor 
of Tennessee. When his term was up he was elected again. 
The tailor of Greenville was getting along famously, was 
he not ? 

In fact, there was then no more popular man in the State 
of Tennessee than Andrew Johnson. He kept doing things 
that amazed and interested the people. He was not ashamed 
of his early business, and here is one of the odd things he did 
when he was Governor of Tennessee. He made with his 
own hands a very handsome suit of clothes and sent it as a 
present to the Governor of Kentucky, one of his old friends. 
But the Kentucky Governor had been a blacksmith in his 
young days, and was not ashamed of it either, so he forged 
on the anvil a shovel and tongs and sent them to Governor 
Johnson, saying that he "hoped they would keep alive the 
flame of their old friendship," 



176 



ANDRE W JOHNSON 



When Johnson's second term as Governor had ended he 
was as great a favorite as ever, and was elected to a still 
higher office, that of Senator of the United States. This was 
in 1857, when politics in Congress were red-hot. He was a 
Democrat and a Southerner and might be expected to be a 
strong advocate for the cause of the slave-holders, but he was 
not. While the other States of the South were leaving the 
Union, he worked with all his strength to save Tennessee. 

President Lincoln made 
Andrew Johnson Military Gov- 
ernor of Tennessee. He went 
South determined to hold, by the 
hand of authority, what had been 
gained by the hand of war. He 
did not mince words v/ith his 
enemies, but threatened to send 
them to prison or to hang them. 
^% When the Mayor and Council of 
Nashville refused to take the oath 
of allegiance he locked them up 
in the city jail. 

Some time after that the 
Confederate armies marched back 
into the State. Their coming filled many people with alarm, 
but it did not frighten the bold Governor This is what he 
said : 'T am no military man, but any one who talks of sur- 
rendering I will shoot" You may be sure that all this made 
Governor Johnson very popular in the North, and that, in 
1864, it brought him the nomination for the Vice-Presidency. 
The greatest day and most famous speech of Andrew 
Johnson came in October, 1864. Then, in the streets of 
Nashville, a great assembly of colored men gathered to hear 




JEFFERSON DAVIS. 
PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERACY. 



ANDREW JOHNSON 177 

him speak. Never did he show more fire and spirit The 
vast audience went wild with enthusiasm. When he reached 
the climax of his speech, and said that he would be the Moses 
to lead them from bondage into liberty and peace, his hearers 
broke into sobs of feeling and shouts of joy. That speech 
went like wildfire through the North. It won him a host of 
votes. In a week or two after he was elected Vice-President 
of the United States. Inauguration day came on the 4th of 
March, 1865, and six weeks later the murder of Abraham 
Lincoln lifted Andrew Johnson to the highest place in his 
country, that of President of the United States. Never had 
the country known anything like the progress of these two 
men — that of Lincoln from the lowly position of wood- 
chopper, that of Johnson from the bench of the tailor's appren- 
tice, to preside over one of the greatest nations of the earth 
and make the White House at Washington their palatial home. 

The war was at an end. The South, which had fought 
with all its strength, lay conquered and prostrate before the 
Government at Washington. To the astonishment of every- 
body the new President did not treat the South with severity. 
Instead of seeking to punish the rebels severely, he wished to let 
them off without any punishment at all. He did not wait for 
Congress to act, but at once invited them back into the Union, 
without asking of them any security against future troubles. 

The whole country stood amazed. The members of Con- 
gress were incensed by his hasty and unwise action. When 
they came together in December they hastened to undo all 
that the President had done, and made it plain that the South 
would not be brought back into the Union until the powers 
of secession were tied hand and feet. 

Then there came a war of a different kind from that in 
the field. It was between the President and Congress. He 



r 78 ANDRE W JOHNSON 

went so far at length that they declared he had broken the 
Constitution and must be impeached — that is, he was put on 
trial for what were called " high crimes and misdemeanors." 

Never had such a charge been brought against a Presi- 
dent of the United States. It is to be hoped it never will be 
again. The Senate of the United States was formed into a 
great court, before which the President was tried as a breaker 
of the law and a traitor to his oath. He was not convicted ; 
it took a two-thirds vote to do that ; but he escaped by only 
a single vote. Soon after that his term of office came to an 
end and he was succeeded by a very different man, Ulysses 
S. Grant, the great war general. But President Johnson had 
many friends in the South, for his course as President had 
pleased the Southern people highly, and six years after his 
term as President had ended he was sent back to the Senate 
by Tennessee. But his term was very short, for in July, 1875, 
soon after he had returned to Tennessee from his first session 
in Congress, he suddenly died. 

No other President ever had so stormy a career as Andrew 
Johnson. Yet he was a man of kindly nature and had qualities 
which endeared him to his friends. He always had women 
of fine character about him. His wife, who had done so much 
to start him in his career, was too feeble in health to take on 
herself the duties of mistress of the White House, but her 
daughter, Mrs. Martha Patterson, took her place, and per- 
formed the social duties of the position with suitable grace and 
dignity. He was surrounded to the last by those who loved 
and believed in him, and died in the full assurance that he 
had done his best for the country's welfare, and had been very 
badly treated by Congress. 



ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 



THE EIGHTEENTH PRESIDENT. 




AMERICA'S GREATEST GENERAL. 

Would you like to be a sol- 
dier? Do not all say yes to that, 
for a soldier's life is not all holiday 
and parade. We all like to see 
soldiers marching, with their drums 
and guns and flags and uniforms. 
They make a fine sight, and most 
of us hurrah and clap our hands as 
the regiments march by ; and many 
think that a soldier s life must be a 
splendid one. But when these sol- 
diers go marching to battle it is 
quite another thing. For war is 
terrible, and some of the bravest soldiers hate it the most. 

Sometimes, however, great questions and bitter quarrels 
can only be settled by war and fighting, and then it is well for 
the people to have their armies led to battle by such a great 
and gallant soldier as I am going to speak of 

His name was Ulysses Simpson Grant. He was born 
in a little town, out in Ohio, called Point Pleasant, on the 
twenty-seventh of April, in the year 1822. The house in 
which he was born is still standing. It is on the banks of the 
Ohio River, and you can look across to Kentucky, on the 
other side of the river. But he did not live there long, for 

179 



ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



i8o ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

when he was only a year old his father moved to a place called 
Georgetown, not far away, where Ulysses spent his boyhood. 

Ulysses was a strong, healthy, go-ahead little fellow, who 
did not like to go to school very well. But, if he had any- 
thing to do, either in w^ork or play, he stuck to it until it was 
done. At seven or eight years of age he drove the wagons 
loaded with wood from the forest to the house. At eleven he 
was strong enough to hold a plough. When he was seventeen 
years old, he was. sent to the splendid school among the beau- 
tiful highlands of the Hudson River, in New York, where 
boys are taught to become soldiers of the United States Army. 
This is called the United States Military Academy, and is at 
a place named West Point. 

Young Grant stayed four years at this famous school. 
He did not like the school part of it any more at West Point 
than he did at his Ohio school-house, but he loved horses, 
and became a fine horseback rider. When he left West Point 
he was made second lieutenant in the United States Army. 
He went home, but in a year or two there was a war between 
the United States and Mexico, the country that joins us on 
the south. This war is called the Mexican War. 

Young Ulysses Grant went to this war, and fought the 
Mexicans in many bloody battles. He was a daring young 
officer, and his men followed willingly wherever he led. In 
one of the hardest battles of the war — the battle of Monterey 
— the American soldiers charged into the town and then got 
out of ammunition — that is, their powder and shot ran out. 
To get any more, some one w^ould have to ride straight through 
the fire of the Mexicans, who were in the houses of the town; 
so the general did not think he could order any soldier to do 
this. But he asked who would do it. 



ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 



i8i 



Lieutenant Grant at once said he would go. He mounted 
his horse, but sHpped over on the side furthest from the houses 




GENERAL GRANT WAS A SKILLED AND FEARLESS HORSEMAN. HE ONCE RODE HIS 
HORSE OVER A NARROW GANG-PLANK ON TO A STEAMBOAT. 

in which the Mexicans were hiding-. Then he set his horse 
on a gallop, and so dashed through the town and past all the 
hostile houses, and brought back the ammunition in safety. 



1 82 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

He did many other brave and soldierly things when he 
was a young officer in this war with Mexico, but he was 
always such a modest man that he never liked to tell of his 
courageous deeds. When he did, he would generally say : 
" O, well ; the battle would have been won, just as it was, if I 
I had not been there." The brave men and the bravest boys, 
you know, never boast. 

At another time, when a strong fort was in the path of 
the Americans, Lieutenant Grant dragged a small cannon 
away up into a church steeple, and, pointing it at the fort, fired 
his cannon balls so swift and straight and sure that the Mexi- 
can soldiers had to run out of the fort, and the Americans 
marched into it and soon after took the city it had defended. 
The Mexicans were defeated in many battles, and at last the 
cruel war was ended. The Americans were victorious and 
marched back north to their homes. 

Soon after he came back. Grant got married. Three 
years afterward he had to go without his wife to California 
and Oregon, where his regiment was sent. 

He soon got tired of being away from his wife and chil- 
dren, so he gave up the business of soldier, and went back to 
his little farm near St. Louis, in Missouri. 

He lived in a log-house on his farm with his wife and 
children. At times he was quite poor. He moved from St. 
Louis to the town of Galena, in Illinois, where he became a 
tanner and made leather with his father and brothers. 

One evening, in the spring of 1861, there was great 
excitement at Hanover, a little town a few miles from Galena, 
where Grant lived. The firing on the flag and the call for 
soldiers to defend the Union had aroused all the Northern 
land. A mass-meeting had been called at the town-hall, but 
the crowds were too large for the building, so they met at the 



ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 183 

Presbyterian Church, which was much larger. There were 
many fiery speeches, and at last a man whom few there knew 
was called upon for a speech ; he rose, looking scared and 
nervous. He was a rather heavy man, of average height, with 
square features and resolute jaws. What made the crowd 
look at him was his old blue army-coat — the only one in the 
audience. Some of the people there knew that he had been 
in the Mexican War, and bore the rank of captain. 

Everybody was quiet, and all eyes were turned to the 
man in the blue army-coat. At last he said, in a quiet, homely 
fashion, after a good deal of effort : 

" Boys, I can't make a speech. I never made a speech 
in my life. But when the time comes to go to the front, I 
am ready to go with you," 

The man who said this in the old brick meeting-house at 
Hanover was Ulysses S. Grant. That he was ready to march, 
if not ready to talk, he soon showed. 

Grant was a very modest man. He had no pride and 
no vanity, and did not think he was much of a soldier. There 
are men who do not know what they can do till they are tried. 
Instead of asking for a high office, as so many paper soldiers 
did, he began in a very humble way by drilling some awkward 
countrymen. Then he was put to mustering in regiments, but 
when he asked to be made colonel of a regiment, no notice 
was taken of his request. He was too quiet about it, and he 
tells us he was afraid he did not know enough to command a 
regiment. Do you not think that Grant was much too modest? 

Anyhow, old soldiers were badly wanted, and Captain 
Grant was soon made a colonel. He marched away with his 
raw soldiers until he came near where there were some Con- 
federate soldiers. Grant does not tell us that he was afraid, 
but that he "would have given anything to be back in Illinois." 



i84 



ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 



But he marched ahead, all the same, and when he came where 
the Confederates had been, he found they were all gone. They 
must have felt the same way as he did. Soon after that some 
one told President Lincoln that Colonel Grant was a good 
soldier. The President just then wanted good soldiers and 




AN INCIDENT OF THE V/AR— CUSHING'S LAST SHOT. 

In the fierce struggle at Gettysburg, Cushing's Battery was overwhelmed by the Confederate 
General Armistead. Gushing fired his gun as he fell mortally wounded. 

gave him the rank of brigadier-general. That was a big move 
up from drilling raw recruits. 

After the war had been going on for several months the 
men who were at the head of things began to find out that 
General Grant knew his business, and he was given command 
of a large number of men and marched with them against the 



ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 185 

Confederates, as the Southern soldiers were called. There 
were some hard battles fought, among them one at Belmont, 
on the Mississippi River, at which village a severe engage- 
ment took place. This was General Grant's first fight, and he 
got the worst of it, for the enemy had more men and guns 
than he had. But he got his men off all right. That was his 
first battle and the only time he met with any sort of a defeat. 

I cannot tell the whole story of his battles. You will 
read them some time in history. All I can do here is to run 
over them very fast. Grant's first great victory was at a place 
in Kentucky called Fort Donelson. Here he got 15,000 Con- 
federate soldiers cooped up as tightly as so many rats in a 
trap. ** What terms can you give us ?" asked the Confederate 
general. '' No terms except unconditional surrender," said 
Grant. That meant that they must give up everything — their 
fort, their men, and their arms. And they did. 

This was the first great victory of the war, and the people 
praised General Grant highly and said that he was a fine sol- 
dier. Some said that his name, U. S. Grant, stood for 
"Unconditional Surrender Grant," and everybody liked the 
sound of that. 

Grant's next great battle was at a place in Tennessee 
called Shiloh. It was one of the most dreadful battles of the 
war. General Grant was not nervous any longer and did not 
wish he was back in Illinois. He went in to fight and to win. 
The battle lasted through two days in April, 1862. Albert 
Sidney Johnston, a brave and able general, led the Confede- 
rates. Had not General Grant hung on like a bulldog and 
shown a wonderful skill in handling his men, the Northern 
troops would surely have been beaten, and the Union cause 
would have been sadly put back. 

But he stuck to it. He must win, that was all. And he 



1 86 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

did win. He rode up and down the line all that terrible 
Saturday and Sunday, giving orders, directing and encourag- 
ing his men. For he knew that they were mostly soldiers 
who had never seen a battle, and he knew that unless they 
were made braver by the courage and bravery of their leaders, 
they would not make good soldiers. 

So all through this dreadful battle of Shiloh, in which the 
dash and bravery of the South first met the courage and 
endurance of the North, General Grant was in the thick of it, 
always where he was wanted, inspiring his soldiers, bringing 
victory out of defeat, and showing the world what a great 
general he really was. 

After that great victory he kept defeating the Confederate 
soldiers whenever he fought them. They were very brave, 
for they were Americans. But they had not so able a general 
to lead them in battle. At last Grant got a large Southern 
army surrounded in a town called Vicksburg. He marched 
his soldiers against it and built forts around it and banged 
away at it with his great cannons until at last, when the Con- 
federates in the town could get no help and could not get 
away, they gave up the town and all its forts and soldiers and 
guns to General Grant. That is called the surrender of 
Vicksburg. After another great victory at Chattanooga, among 
the mountains. General Grant was given command of all the 
armies of the United States, and men began to say that he 
was one of the greatest generals of the world. 

So far he had fought in the West. Now he came East 
and took command of the Northern soldiers in Virginia — 
what was called the Army of the Potomac. Here he fought 
the Confederates and their brave leader. General Lee, for a 
whole year. There were many dreadful battles. There never 
were Harder ones in all the world. But General Grant knew 



ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 187 

that if he wished to win he must fight hard and terribly. The 
fighting was in the region that separated the two capitals — 
Washington, the capital of the United States, and Richmond, 
the capital of the Confederate States, as the Southern govern- 
ment was called. 

Here the two greatest generals of the war, Grant and 
Lee, were face to face. Neither were defeated, but Lee had 
to go back, step by step, till Grant and his soldiers got near 
to Richmond. When Grant was asked what he was going to 
do, he said, in his grim way, " I will fight it out on this line 
if it takes all summer." 

It did take all summer, and all winter, too ; but Grant 
kept '' fighting it out on that line." He did not know what 
it meant to give up, and at last General Lee could hold out 
no longer. Probably no other soldier in America could have 
defeated General Lee and his soldiers except General Grant. 
The Southern soldiers were brave and determined ; they were 
desperate ; they knew if they did not beat Grant and capture 
Washington the cause of the South must be given up ; and 
they, too, had one of the best generals in the world. 

So they fought on, even after they began to get hungry 
and ragged, and long after the South was poor and empty. 
Gradually, however, they grew weaker ; and still General 
Grant kept at it, forcing them back, back, until at last they 
had to leave Richmond, and General Lee was forced to make 
an "unconditional surrender," with all his army. This was 
on the 9th of April, 1865, at a place in Virginia called Appo- 
mattox. It was the end of a long and cruel war. 

And now General Grant showed his fine spirit. The men 
he had conquered were Americans. They were brave and 
thought they were fighting for their rights. Grant might have 
treated them harshly and cruelly, but he was not that kind of 



i88 ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 

a man. He told them to keep their horses so that when they 
got home they could plough their fields and get them ready 
for planting ; he gave thenr food and clothes, and sent them 
away friends ; he said to North and South alike : "The war 
is over. Let us have peace." 

Of course his great success made him a hero. He was 
a splendid one, as great a soldier as Napoleon and a much 
better man. General Grant was quiet, modest and silent. Of 
course, the world thought all the more of him because he did 
not try to put himself forward. The people of his own coun- 
try thought so much of him that they twice made him Presi- 
dent of the United States, just as they had done Washington 
and Lincoln. That was a pretty good rise for a little Wes- 
tern farmer boy and tanner. 

At the end of his second term as President he made a 
journey around the world, for he had always wished to see 
foreign lands. Wherever he went he was received with the 
greatest honor. Kings and queens and princes invited him 
to their palaces and were glad to see him. He visited the 
Queen of England in her palace of Windsor Castle ; he talked 
with the soldiers and statesmen of the world, while emperors 
honored him as one of the world's famous men, and cities 
welcomed him as the foremost general of the day and the 
man who had been President of the great Republic. 

I am sorry to say that this is not the whole story of 
General Grant's life, but that misfortune and misery came 
upon him in his later years. Some men in New York City 
induced him to put his money in a business which they had 
started, telling him that they could make much money for 
him. One of them proved a fraud and cheat. He used 
General Grant's name to deceive the people, and managed 



ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT 189 

the business so that everything was lost. Then he ran away, 
after robbing Grant and the others who had trusted. in him. 

The news of this shameful affair broke the great general 
down. It almost defeated the soldier who had never known 
defeat. It made him weak and sick. But, just as he had 
marched to war courageously, so now he faced disaster just 
as bravely. He set to work to make his losses good, and, 
because all the world wished to hear about him, he began to 
write the story of his life and his battles. 

He kept himself alive to do this. He was taken sick with 
a frightful disease, but for over a year he fought ruin and a ter- 
rible pain as stoutly as he had ever battled with real soldiers, 
while all the world looked on in love and pity. He won the 
fight, for he did not give up until his book was finished. On 
the twenty-first of July, 1885, on the mountain-top to which 
he had been carried, near Saratoga, in New York, General 
Grant died, and all the world mourned a great man gone. 

The world mourned, for men and women everywhere had 
learned -to honor the great general as much for his victories 
over disaster, disgrace and pain as for his conquests in war 
and his governing in peace. His funeral, on Saturday, 
August 8, 1885, was one of the grandest public ceremonials 
ever seen in America. The President of the United States, 
senators, governors, generals, judges and famous men came 
to New York to show their sorrow and esteem, and the poor 
boy of the Western prairies was buried on the banks of the 
Hudson in a tomb erected by the great General's friends, amid 
the solemn tolling of bells and firing of cannon, while all 
people and all lands sent words of sorrow and of sympathy 
td the Republic which had honored him in death as it had 
honored him in life. 



RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES 

THE NINETEENTH PRESIDENT. 



A PRESIDENT BY A SMALL MAJORITY. 

There are men whose hves 
were full of incident and adventure, 
who had a hard struggle with pov- 
erty in their youth, or whose career 
was otherwise of great interest. Of 
such men there is much to say, and 
several of these have been Presi- 
dents of the United States. There 
are others who had no strug- 
gles and little adventure, and 
whose lives have moved calmly and 
quietly on. Such a man was Ruther- 
ford Birchard Hayes, the nineteenth 
President of this great Republic. 
Mr. Hayes was of sound New England stock, for his 
family came from the Green Mountain State, where they had 
been earnest patriots in "the times that tried men's souls." 
Thence they went west and settled in the new State of Ohio. 
Here, in the town of Delaware, the future President was born, 
on the 4th of October, 1822. 

No trouble or distress, no hard work or scant fare, no 

visions of poverty and want came to the growing boy, for his 

father owned and worked a large farm and kept a store as 

well, so that there was plenty for all, and the boy grew up 

190 




RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. 



RUTHERFORD BIRCH ARD HAYES 191 

in a comfortable and happy home. He was a stout, happy 
little fellow, so rosy of countenance that they gave him the 
pet name of Ruddy. His family had been one of soldiers, for 
some of its sons had fought in the Revolution and the war of 
181 2, and he grew up with the soldier spirit which they passed 
on to him. 

His father died when he was a child, but all went well 
with the family, for he left them plenty to live on. Ruther- 
ford and his little sister Fanny went to a small school near 
their home, and their mother helped them with their lessons, 
so that they got on very nicely. He was a good scholar, and 
when he got older was sent to academies at a distance from 
home, and afterward to Kenyon College, in Ohio. 

He was sixteen years old then, a hearty, strong boy, good 
at his books, but also fond of fun and sport, as all hearty boys 
should be, and he was strong and hardy, for we are told that 
once, when winter's snows lay deep on the ground, he walked 
all the way from college to his home and back again, a dis- 
tance of forty miles. At college he had plenty of friends ; all 
liked him, for he was very genial and sociable. He graduated 
in 1842, and his valedictory speech won him much praise. 

The young student had made up his mind to take up the 
profession which so many of our Presidents have followed, that 
of the law ; and after studying for a time at Columbus, Ohio, 
he went to the Law School of Harvard College, where he 
spent two years of close study. I think he must have worked 
a little too hard over the dry books of the law, for when he 
came home and tried to practice he found himself so weak and 
sickly that he had to go far down South and spend a winter 
there for his health. 

He got quite hearty there. People often do, for the soft 
airs and the spicy odors of the far South are great healers. 



192 RUTHERFORD BIRCH ARD HAYES 

When he got to feehng well and strong again he came back 
and opened an office in Cincinnati. Here he was soon busy 
enough and he made hosts of friends, for he was very friendly 
and fond of good society. He met and married a very attrac- 
tive young woman named Lucy W. Webb. She was the 
daughter of a doctor, and was a student at a college in 
Cincinnati when he got acquainted with her. She was young 
and pretty, of a fine character and very attractive in manner, 
and she proved to have a rare and lovely soul. The two were 
very happy indeed, and Mr. Hayes soon got a good practice 
in his profession, and became so popular that he was chosen 
to fill important positions in the city government. Such was 
the state oi affairs in his life when 1861 came round and the 
Civil War broke out. 

Now the soldier spirit in Rutherford Hayes showed itself 
He was an earnest lover of the Union, and when he heard 
that Fort Sumter had been fired on by the secessionists, he 
was eager to fight for the old flag. When word came to 
Cincinnati that the flag of the stars and stripes had been 
insulted, a great mass-meeting was held, of which Mr. Hayes 
was made chairman. He w^as chosen because it was known 
that he was a warm patriot and one of the leaders of the war 
party. When men began to volunteer for the war he was 
quick to join them, and the Twenty-third Ohio Regiment chose 
him for its major. A few months after that he was made 
lieutenant-colonel, and he kept going up in rank, till he 
became a general. 

There is a very interesting thing to be said about the 
Twenty-third Regiment. It had in it two men who were to 
become Presidents of the United States. One of these was 
Major Hayes, and the other was a boy who carried a musket 
in the ranks. His name was William McKinley. It is well 



RUTHERFORD BIRCH ARD HAYES 193 

to say here that the Major got to know and think a great deal 
of the boy private. They became in time very good friends, 
and as long as they lived they were close companions. When 
Hayes became President, McKinley was in Congress, and they 
kept up in Washington the old friendly feeling that they had 
felt on the battle-field. 

Great battles were fought and the Twenty-third Ohio took 
part in them. Hayes was promoted to be colonel of the regi- 
ment, and at the famous battle of South Mountain he fought 
like a hero. He was wounded four times, and in one battle 
his horse was shot dead under him. This was in the Shenan- 
doah Valley, where he fought in a number of severe battles. 
He did his duty so nobly that he was made a brigadier- 
general. 

Mrs. Hayes showed herself to be a true soldier's wife. 
She left home and sought her husband's camp, where she 
brought a ray of brightness into his life and won the hearts of 
the wounded by her devoted services. She mended the torn 
clothes of the rough soldiers, she nursed the wounded with 
loving care, and showed a sympathy that did them more good 
than all their medicines. While he was fighting so bravely he 
was nominated for Congress. 

General Hayes did not need to go home to electioneer. 
He was elected while he was in the field. The people at 
home liked him better as a fighter than they would have done 
as a politician. The next spring the war ended and he went 
home. He had now won the brevet rank of major-general, 
and his friend McKinley had risen from the ranks to his former 
grade of major. When the next Congress met, on the 4th of 
December, 1865, Hayes took his seat in the House. 

He spent only two years in Congress. His services there 
were not as brilliant as on the field of battle. He was not a 

"3 



194 RUTHERFORD BIRCH ARD HAYES 

Splendid orator, but he had good sense and sound judgment ; 
he was fearless in his struggle for right and justice, and he 
won the respect and regard of his fellow members. 

The people of his State must have thought very highly of 
him, for at the end of his term in Congress they chose him 
for Governor of Ohio, and twice afterward they re-elected him 
to that important and honorable post. That brought him on 
to 1873. Since 1861 he had been busily engaged in public 
duties, as soldier, Congressman, and as Governor. Now he 
thought he had earned a rest and made tip his mind to go 
back to private life. So he sought a home in Fremont, Ohio, 
where he had lived for a short time after he left college, and 
settled down for a good long life in peace and quiet. 

Little did he dream what was coming. It is not likely 
the modest lawyer ever thought of going higher than Governor 
of Ohio. But the people of the country thought differently. 
When the Republican National Convention met in 1876 to 
choose a candidate for the Presidency the names of many 
brilliant men were brought before it But gradually the name 
of Governor Hayes rose above them all, and after a sharp 
contest he was chosen as the party's candidate for President. 
Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, was nominated by the Demo- 
cratic party, and the fight was on. 

It was a famous contest. It was so close that no one 
could be sure who was elected. The Republicans claimed 
that they had elected Hayes and the Democrats that they had 
elected Tilden, and both parties grew very angry. There was 
much bitter talk ; men called their opponents frauds and 
cheats ; the country was full of dread of the evil passions that 
had been raised, for even threats of civil war were made. 

The trouble came from the election in the South, where 
the votes of some of the States were so close that it was hard 



RUTHERFORD BIRCH ARD HAYES 195 

to decide who was elected. In Florida and Louisiana the 
largest number of votes were counted for the Democratic can- 
didates. But the Returning Boards, whose duty it was to 
count the votes, said that there were frauds in certain districts 
and would not count their votes. This gave the Republicans 
the majority. 

The Democrats cried out that they had been cheated and 
that Tilden was elected. The Republicans cried out as loudly 
that the Returning Boards were right and that Hayes was 
elected. When the question came before Congress the fight 
was as severe there, and no decision could be reached. The 
House was for Tilden and the Senate was for Hayes. In the 
end the dispute had to be given over to an Electoral Com- 
mission, made up of five Senators, five Representatives, and 
five Judges of the Supreme Court. The Commission decided, 
by a majority of one, that Hayes was elected. 

After his term of office was ended President Hayes went 
back to his home in Fremont, Ohio, where he settled down 
with hopes of a long and happy life. He was still less than 
sixty years old and was wide-awake to all the great questions 
of the day. He lived, respected by all who knew him, till 
January 17, 1893, when death took him away. 

There is one thing more to be said. While Hayes was 
President, and his noble wife was mistress of the White 
House, no wine was ever put on the table, even when ban- 
quets were given and foreign ministers were invited. Mrs. 
Hayes was a very earnest temperance woman, and her hus- 
band supported her in this, though there were many severe 
things said about them. This was the first and only time in 
the history of the country that wine has not had its place on 
the White House table, at least in the great State banquets. 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 

THE TWENTIETH PRESIDENT. 




THE SECOND MARTYRED PRESIDENT. 

I am about to tell you the story 
of another boy who began life 
almost as poor as Abraham Lin- 
coln, and who like him rose to be 
President of the United States. He, 
too, was without warning killed by a 
base and wicked murderer. He was 
the second American President to be 
murdered, and there was soon to 
be a third. Men are often killed for 
some wrong or injustice they have 
done, but these were three of the 
best and kindest men, as well as 
the ablest, who ever held the office of President, and this 
makes their murder all the more dreadful. 

But this comes later on in my story. What I have now 
to tell is how another farmer boy, like Lincoln and Grant, rose 
by the same qualities of industry and push to greatness, and 
was elected to the highest office in the United States. 

About seventy years ago, when the great State of Ohio 
was little more than a wilderness, a man by the name of 
Abram Garfield moved from the State of New York out into 
that wild country, and settled in Cuyahoga County. The 
name Cuyahoga is an Indian word, and at that time there 
196 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 



197 



were a great many Indians in the State. Abram Garfield had 
married, before going to Ohio, a young woman by the name 
of Ehza Ballon, whose ancestors had fled from persecution in 
France about one hundred and fifty years before. 

When Abram Garfield and his young wife moved to Ohio 
they settled in what was known as "The Wilderness," where 
quite a number of other people from Connecticut had recently 




GARFIELD'S BIRTHPLACE AND THE HOME OF HIS CHILDHOOD. 

moved and built houses for thenjselves. The whole country 
was covered with great forests, and the first work to be done 
was to clear away a place in the woods and build a log cabin. 
It had but one room, with a door, three windows, and a 
chimney at one end. Abram Garfield and his wife had three 
children when they moved to this rough country, and about a 
year after they got there their youngest son was born. They 



198 JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 

named him James Abram — "Abram" being for his father. 
There were now mother and father and four children living in 
this little log-cabin out in the wilderness. 

All day long the father cut trees in the forest, or worked 
in his new fields among the stumps which were still left in the 
ground ; but he was very industrious and raised enough on 
the farm to support his family, while Mrs. Garfield, with her 
spinning-wheel and loom, was all day busy in spinning thread 
and weaving cloth to make them clothes. 

They had no servant, but waited on themselves, not only 
growing cattle, hogs and chickens on their little farm, and 
raising the corn and wheat which they ate, but also spinning 
and weaving the cloth which Mrs. Garfield made into clothes 
for the children. Don't you think this was a very hard life ? 
So it would be to most of our young people now, but it was 
the kind of life which many of the settlers in the wild western 
country had to lead. Yet they owned their little farm and 
house; both together, perhaps, worth two or three hundred 
dollars. Of course, they had to do their cooking, eating, 
sleeping, receive their company, spin and weave and make 
their clothes, all in their little one-room house. 

Still they were honest and contented, and every morning 
when Mr. Garfield went away, with his axe on his shoulder 
or to follow the plough, you might have heard him whistling 
or singing a merry tune. As soon as breakfast was over the 
little fellows, in the summer, were out of doors, or away in 
the woods to pick berries, or to bring wood for their mother 
to cook with, or to carry water from the spring, which was 
some distance from the house. 

At night, when they sat alone in their little cabin, their 
father or mother would read, or they would tell them stories 
about the old times in Connecticut or New York, or about 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 



199 



the long and weary journey from New York to Ohio, and the 
wonderful things that they saw on their way. So, with all, 
as I have told you, it was a very happy and contented little 
household. 

Mr. Garfield was beginning to be prosperous. It did not 
take much to be prosperous in those days. What he looked 
forward to was to have a big farm some day, and build a house 
which would have as many as three rooms, or maybe four. 




GARFIELD ON THE TOW-PATH. 



But suddenly, one day, he came home very ill. There were 
few doctors in that wild wilderness, and those who were there, 
as a rule, knew very little about the practice of medicine ; so, 
after a short illness, the good man died when he was only 
thirty-three years of age. 

Can you think of anything more sad than this — a little 
one-room log-cabin, far out in the forests of Ohio, with very 
few neighbors near enough to visit them, the husband dead, 



200 JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 

and the poor woman with her four little children, left alone so 
far away from her friends and relatives in the East? Do you 
not think the first thing she should do would be to try to sell 
her little farm, and with her children go back to New York or 
Connecticut? 

But this was not what Mrs. Garfield did. She determined 
to remain in her little home, and, with her own hands, try to 
make a living and raise her children. She was a good woman 
and had a fair education, and she taught her little ones and 
read to them out of good books. 

James was still a baby, and for several years it was a life 
of struggle and privation. The mother was so poor that, if 
she had lived in one of the great cities, the people would have 
thought they must go to her aid and send her food and clothing 
to help her in her distress, and so they should ; but it was 
different far out in the wilderness. Almost everybody was 
poor there, and lived on the plainest of food, and dressed in 
the plainest clothes, and there were no rich people to be seen. 

When little James was only three years old a neighbor- 
ing school was started in a little log-hut, and he was sent 
along with the other children. Before he was four years of 
age he had learned to read ; and by the time he was ten, it is 
said, he had borrowed and read nearly all the books in his 
neighborhood. From that time until the close of his life he 
was a great reader and student. 

By the time he was ten years of age he had learned to 
do almost everything about the farm which could be done by 
so small a boy. He not only helped the other children and 
his mother, but, when they had done their own work, he 
frequently went to other farms and worked for the neighbors 
that he might make a little money to help his mother along. 

He had very little time to play, so he made play out of 



I 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 201 

his work by doing it always cheerfully. All the spring and 
summer the children worked, but every winter their mother 
sent them to the little neighborhood school. It is said there 
was never a day in Mrs. Garfield's home that she and the 
children did not read certain parts of the Bible. In this way 
Garfield came to manhood knowing a large portion of the 
Bible by heart and very familiar with it all. 

He was fond of reading Cooper's " Sea Tales ;" and the 
story of "Long Tom" and his wonderful adventures on the 
ocean filled him with delight. It made him want to go to sea 
himself so much that in 1848, when he was seventeen years 
old, he left home and went to Cleveland, Ohio, and offered to 
go on board of one of the great lake schooners as a sailor. 

It was a day or two before the ship would go out, and 
during that time Garfield learned that the sailors, as a rule, 
were very rough men and that life on the sea was not so jolly 
and pleasant as he had supposed. So he decided he would 
not go on the lake, and immediately turned away from the 
shore and started home ; but he had not gone very far 
before he began to feel ashamed of himself. 

He had used all his money, and he did not like to go 
back home that way. Besides, like many other ambitious 
boys, he thought he ought to do something to tell the people 
about when he got home. So he went to the Ohio and Penn- 
sylvania Canal, on which they ran boats drawn by horses on 
the bank, and he hired himself to drive the horses on one of 
these boats. He was to receive twelve dollars a month for 
his work. 

James had been used to driving horses at home on the 
farm, and during his trip on the towpath he did his work so 
well and pleased his employers so much that at the end of the 
round trip they promoted him from the position of a driver. 



202 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 



by putting him on board the boat to steer it instead of 
driving the horses. James thought this was quite an advance ; 
but it proved to be very much more dangerous than driving 
the horses, for he had to stand on the edge of the boat and 
work the rudder ; and several times he fell overboard, and was 

in danger of drowning. 

It was not long before 

It the need of an edu- 

on, so he left his work 

the canal and entered a 

high school, called a 

seminary, at Chester, 

Ohio, about ten miles 

from his home. He 

had very little money, 

and he and three 

young men boarded 

themselves. They 

rented a room for a 

small price, made 

their own beds, 

cooked their own 

food, and ate in their 

own room. 

In his vacations 
he did carpenter work 
when he could get it 
to do, and at other times he worked in the harvest-fields, 
and did anything and everything to earn money for his school- 
ing. After his first term, he was able, in this way, to take 
care of himself entirely, and did not ask his mother or any 
one else for their aid. 




THE BOY JAMES GARFIELD BRINGING HIS FIRST 
DAY S EARNINGS TO HIS MOTHER. 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 203 

Garfield was always one of the best students in the school. 
He also joined heartily in athletic sports with the other young 
men to keep up his bodily strength. He was as good at all 
kinds of sports, and as ready for them, as he was at hard study. 
He played ball and practiced boxing and other active exer- 
cises, and was always a manly and brave fellow. 

Garfield attended this school for three winters, and in 
August, 1 85 1, he entered a higher school known as Hiram 
College. From this moment his desire to get a good educa- 
tion grew stronger. He paid all his expenses at this school by 
teaching in one of the departments and working during his 
vacation. After three years he was not only prepared to go 
to one of the finest colleges in the East, but had saved three 
hundred and fifty dollars toward paying his expenses. 

In the fall of 1853 he left his native State, Ohio, and 
journeyed east and entered Williams College, Massachusetts. 
Two years later he graduated from that fine school, and 
straightway was made the Professor of Languages and Liter- 
ature in Hiram College, which he had formerly attended ; and 
the very next year, when he was twenty-six years old, he was 
made President of Hiram College. 

One year later, he married Miss Lucretia Rudolph, one 
of his old schoolmates with whom he had fallen in love while 
at Chester Seminary. 

Mr. Garfield continued to be President of Hiram Collesfe 
for five years, and under his wise management the college 
took on new life. There were very soon twice as many stu- 
dents as there had been before, and everybody seemed to 
get some of Mr. Garfield's zeal. He grew so popular that 
in 1858, when some of his friends were running for an ofhce, 
they begged him to make some speeches for them, which 
he did. 



204 JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 

This made him still more popular. There is a good 
opening for a man who can make a sensible political speech, 
and in 1859 Garfield was elected to the State Senate of Ohio, 
where he became a very influential member. In 1861, when 
the war broke out, he persuaded the Ohio Senate to vote 
twenty thousand soldiers and three millions of dollars to fight 
for the Union. 

This made Mr. .Garfield so great a favorite in the State 
that the Governor of Ohio offered him the command of the 
Forty-second Regiment, which was then being organized for 
the war. Many of the young men in the regiment were, or 
had been, students, of Hiram College, of which Mr. Garfield 
had been President; so he consented to command the regi- 
ment, and in December, 1861, he took them down into Ken- 
tucky and West Virginia to join in the fighting. 

One of the brave things that Garfield did as a soldier 
was at the great battle of Chickamauga, near Chattanooga, 
Tennessee. The fighting had been very hard, and it looked 
as if the Confederates would be victorious. General Rosecrans 
thought they would surely win the day, so he with Colonel 
Garfield left the fighting ground and hastened to Chattanooga 
to make arrangements for his army to retreat so they would 
not be captured. 

General Thomas was left to command the Union forces. 
As soon as they reached Chattanooga, Garfield begged 
General Rosecrans to let him go back to the battlefield 
and join General Thomas. This he did, and with his 
help General Thomas made a fresh assault on the Confeder- 
ates, and drove them back far enough to permit the Union 
forces to retreat in perfect safety that night. For this gallant 
service, Colonel Garfield was made major-general. 

Soon after the great battle of Chickamauga, Garfield was 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 205 

elected to Congress, and though his salary as major-general 
was double that of a congressman, he felt that he could do 
more good at Washington, so he gave up his position in the 
army and went to Congress. 

Here he was as attentive to -business and as industrious 
as he had been when a boy at work, a student at school and 
president of a college. He had many honors given him in 
Congress, and in 1877, when Mr. Blaine became a Senator, 
Mr. Garfield was made leader of his party, and three years later 
the State of Ohio elected him to the United States Senate. 

But his great honor came in June of that same year, 
when the Republican National Convention in Chicago nomi- 
nated him for President of the United States over and above 
all the other great statesmen and warriors whom the nation 
wanted to honor. General Hancock, who had also fought in 
the war with General Garfield, was nominated by the Demo- 
cratic party for the same office ; but General Garfield was 
elected. In a little while he removed with his family from 
Ohio to the White House at Washington. Was not this a 
great step up from his early home with its log walls and its 
one room ? 

Some of Mr. Garfield's most determined enemies were 
the leading men of the nation. By that we do not mean the 
best men, but they were brilliant and learned and shrewd 
men, and great politicians, like Mr. Conkling of New York, 
who was a member of the United States Senate. Mr. Conk- 
ling did everything he could to make President Garfield 
unhappy, and to throw all the difficulties possible in his way. 
This was because the President would not appoint to office 
the men that Conkling wanted, but chose men that he thought 
better fitted for the work to be done. 

Finally, Mr. Conkling, finding that he could not control 



2o6 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 



the Senators as he tried to do, resigned his place in the 
United States Senate and went home. Mr. Piatt, another 
Senator from New York, did the same thing. These things 
made a great commotion among the political leaders, and per- 
haps was the cause of the tragedy which followed. 

On July 2, 1881, after Mr. Garfield had been in office 




ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD 



only a few months, he rose early and went to the railway sta- 
tion to take the train for Massachusetts. He was going back 
to Williams College to attend the closing exercises of that 
school, and several members of his cabinet and their friends 



were going with him. 



James G. Blaine, the great Maine statesman and orator, 
was his Secretary of State, and rode with President Garfield 



JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 207 

to the station. Mrs. Garfield, who had been at Lone Branch. 
New Jersey, where she had gone to cure herself of malarial 
fever, was to join them at New York. A fine private car was 
waiting for the President and his party. 

Presently the carriage drove up to the door, and President 
Garfield and Secretary Blaine, looking very happy, stepped 
out, smiling to the crowd that stood around. They passed 
inside the door of the waiting-room. A slender, middle- 
aged man had for some time been walking nervously up and 
down the room. As the President and Mr. Blaine came 
in, he quickly drew a pistol from his pocket and, taking 
deliberate aim, shot the President in the shoulder. Mr. Gar- 
field turned quickly to see who had shot him, when the 
assassin fired again, and the President sank to the floor, the 
blood gushing from his side. Secretary Blaine sprang for the 
murderer, but others caught him, and Mr. Blaine went back 
to the President's side. 

They placed the wounded President on a mattress and 
carried him swiftly to the White Flouse, where he quickly 
gave orders that a message should be sent to Mrs. Garfield, 
asking her to come home immediately. Mr. Garfield's mes- 
sage was: "Tell her I am seriously hurt, but I am myself, 
and hope she will come to see me soon. I send her my love." 

That evening Mrs. Garfield was at her husband's side. 
For almost three months the brave, strong man struggled 
between life and death through the hot summer days. At 
last he was removed to Elberon, on the ocean shore near 
Long. Branch, New Jersey, and placed in a cottage where the 
cooling breezes of the sea brought him much relief, and it was 
hoped would save his life ; but it was not to be. 

President Garfield died at night, September 19th, almost 
without a struggle. The news were flashed all over the world 



2o8 JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD 

by telegraph wires, and nearly every town and all the cities in 
the United States were draped in mourning. 

The President's remains were taken back to Washington, 
where great throngs of people viewed them, and thousands of 
faces were wet with tears as they passed his coffin. The sad 
funeral procession then moved slowly to Cleveland, Ohio, 
where a splendid tomb was prepared on the shores of Lake 
Erie, not far from his old home, and it was there they laid 
him down to rest. All along the way the moving train passed 
through lines of sorrowful-faced people, who stood with 
uncovered heads and with tearful eyes as the train moved by. 
In the House of Representatives at Washington, a few months 
later. Secretary Blaine delivered a great speech in praise of 
the dead President, telling how grand a man he had been, 
and the splendid service the Ohio canal boy had given to 
his country. 



CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR 

THE TWENTY-FIRST PRESIDENT. 




THE GREEN MOUNTAIN STATE PRESIDENT. 

In 1 88 1 a second terrible 
tragedy came to the supreme offi- 
cial of the United States. As Lin- 
coln had fallen by the hand of an 
assassin, Garfield fell in the same 
dread way, and the country was 
filled with grief and regret. I have 
told how the wounded President 
lay, awaiting the death that slowly 
^ came. The people had a double 
cause for concern. While full of 
sympathy for their dying chief, they 
felt much dismay when they thought 
Three times before a Vice-President 
had become President, and each time had bitterly disappointed 
those who elected him. What would be the case now? 

For the answer to this we must wait till we have told 
the story of the Vice-President's life. His name was Chester 
Alan Arthur, and he was born in Vermont. He was the son 
of a Baptist clergyman, who had come from Ireland some 
years before, and who found life a hard one in this country, 
with a large family and a small income. This clergyman 
was a preacher at Fairfield, Vermont, when Cheste'r, his oldest 
son, was born on October 28, 1830. 

14 209 



CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR. 



of what might follow 



2IO CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR 

The boy was born to comparative poverty, for country 
ministers got very little to live on in those days. Like several 
of our Presidents, he was born in a log-cabin, where his father 
lived while a house was being built for him. But the boy 
was a happy little fellow, bright in mind, active in disposition, 
full of impulse, given to boyish pranks and frolics. He was 
not afraid to work, and now and then earned some small 
sums by helping on farms or doing other odd jobs. He was 
fond of reading and study as well as of play and sport, and 
his father's books and teachings helped him along in this. 

When he was fourteen years old he was sent to Union 
College, in New York State. Here he studied some, but 
amused himself a good deal. He gave his books only what 
time he could spare from his sports. None of the boys were 
fonder of wild freaks and adventures, and he liked these all 
the better if they had a spice of danger. In this way he 
became a leader in college pranks. He was fond of parades 
and processions, of class games and fun, and was in every 
way a jovial, wide-awake, active and sociable boy. 

But he did not quite forget what he went to college for, 
and managed to graduate with a fair showing. Then he had 
something else before him than college sports. He must 
begin the business of life. He had taught school to help pay 
his way while at college, and he kept at it for two years more, 
saving what money he could, till he had a few hundred dol- 
lars in his purse. While he was teaching he was studying 
law, which he afterward kept up in New York City with the 
money he had saved. He was in the market for a more 
profitable employment than that of teaching country boys how 
to read, write and cipher. 

Young Arthur was not wanting in ambition. It was his 
wish, as it has been with many others, to make his way fast 



CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR 211 

to fame and fortune, and it seemed to him that the great and 
growing West was the place for that. There brains and hard 
work were sure to tell — or at least he thought so — and at 
length, after a period of practice in New York, he and another 
young lawyer, Henry S. Gardner, set out to try their luck. 

They went west. They looked around. They traveled 
here and there, but nowhere could they see fortune in the 
air. They would have to work as hard there as in New 
York; perhaps much harder. So back to New York they 
came. Here Arthur and Gardner became partners and found 
the great city much better for them than the great West. 
They soon found themselves making money. For ten years 
Arthur kept up his law practice, now in partnership and now 
by himself, and he became known as a very able lawyer. 

All his time was not given to the law. He became an 
active abolitionist. He w^as very indignant when he heard of 
the way William Lloyd Garrison was treated in Boston, and 
he appeared as an earnest defender of the colored people. 
He made a fine argument in what was known as the Lemmon 
slave case, which decided that a slave brought into New York 
became a free man. He also won for the colored people the 
right to ride on the street cars in New Yo'/k. A black girl 
had been put off a car, and he took up her case and won it, 
and thus gave black people that right. 

He was active as a politician, too ; at first as a Whig, then 
as a Republican, when the new party was formed. And he 
gained honors in the State militia. In 1855 he became judge- 
advocate of a brigade of New York soldiers. In i860 Governor 
Morgan made him chief engineer on his staff. This position 
was not of much importance then, but it was soon to be. 

When the Civil War broke out Arthur's knowledge of 
military affairs came into play. The Governor raised him to 



212 CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR 

the rank of brigadier-general, and soon after he gave him the 
entire charge of preparing and equipping the soldiers of the 
State. In 1862 he was made inspector-general, which office 
he held till December, 1863, when a new Governor was 
elected and a new man was chosen to take his place. But 
this new man spoke in the very highest terms of praise of the 
way General Arthur had done his work. 

After that Arthur went back to his law practice and kept 
it up till 1 87 1, steadily making money and winning reputation. 
But he kept up his political work also, and did much to help 
General Grant in the 1868 election. He was rewarded in 
1 87 1 by being appointed to the profitable office of collector of 
the port of New York. This is what is usually called Custom 
House officer. He had to attend to the collection of the cus- 
toms, or the tariff on imported goods. 

General Arthur held this office for four years and then 
was again appointed to the same office. He remained in 
office till 1878, when he was dismissed by President Hayes. 

This dismissal was not because he did not do his duty 
well and honestly, but was for another reason. President 
Hayes was a great believer in Civil Service Reform. He 
thought that office-holders should take no part in politics. 

President Hayes could not have served Chester Arthur 
better than he did by turning him out of office for taking an 
active part in politics. Only for that it is not likely he would 
ever have become President of the United States. For it 
brought him into great notice. It was the first great step in 
the struggle for Civil Service Reform which was soon to cost 
President Garfield his life. 

When the time for the Presidential nomination of 1880 
came round. General Arthur was sent to Chicago as one of 
the delegates from New York to the Republican National 



CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR 213 

Convention. There he gave his voice warmly in favor of 
General Grant for a third term. When that could not be had, 
and Garfield was chosen, Arthur's name was among those 
offered for Vice-President. A New Yorker was wanted on 
the ticket, and Arthur's name was offered by Conkling and 
the other New York delegates. So he was nominated and 
elected. In July, 1881, came the great tragedy I have spoken 
of, and on September 19th the wounded President died, and 
Chester Alan Arthur became President of the United States. 

I have spoken of the alarm many men felt when they 
found that a Vice-President, of whose sentiments they knew 
very little, was raised suddenly to the head of the nation. 
Arthur had said nothing while Garfield lay dying. He had 
the good sense and discretion to keep quiet then about public 
affairs. But his first message to Congress greatly pleased the 
people. It was quiet and temperate in tone, and he soon 
showed that he proposed to be President of the people, not of 
a faction. He gave offence to some of his political friends, 
but he gave satisfaction to the nation. 

The country needed a period of calm and quiet after the 
strain and excitement through which it had passed. It had it 
under President Arthur, and the people learned to respect 
him as a good, safe, moderate man. He left office with the 
favor and confidence of his party, not with the bitter feeling 
which had followed Tyler, Fillmore and Johnson. 

President Arthur did not live long to enjoy his repose 
after the cares of office. His wife, a daughter of Commodore 
Herndon, had died in 1879. He was soon to follow her. 
He was taken suddenly ill in the year after his term ended, 
and the country he had well served was surprised to hear of 
his death on November 18, 1886. 



GROVER CLEVELAND 

THE TWENTY-SECOND AND TWENTY-FOURTH PRESIDENT. 




^,\ev>^v^^^ 



GROVER CLEVELAND. 



THE VETO PRESIDENT. 

I do not think you can find any- 
where a man whose career was more 
remarkable than that of Grover Cleve- 
land. Honesty in office made him 
President of the United States, and 
• j that is a splendid thing to say of any 
man. In 1880 he was just a plain, 
ordinary lawyer in Buffalo, New York, 
and very few people knew him outside 
of that city. In 1884 he was being 
talked about from Maine to Cali- 
fornia and was elected President by 
a large majority. That was certainly a wonderful lift upward 
in four years for a man whose whole political capital was 
plain, every7day honesty — just living up to his duty. 

And after he went home and stayed home for four years, 
working away at his old business of the law, the people took 
him up again and sent him back to Washington with a bigger 
majority than before, to act as President for another four years. 
That is something which cannot be said of any other Presi- 
dent, and is a great feather in Grover Cleveland's cap. For 
this reason he is called the twenty-second and twenty-fourth 
President, for another President came between his two terms. 
I must tell you the story of this man's strange life. 
214 



GROVER CLEVELAND 215 

The Clevelands made their first home in America as far 
back as 1635, when a family of that name crossed the seas to 
Massachusetts, soon after the first settlers came. They 
belonged to the sturdy stock of the early New England 
people. Down they came from father to son till we meet 
with Richard F. Cleveland, who was the preacher in a small 
Presbyterian church in the town of Caldwell, New Jersey. 
Here, on the i8th of March, 1837, his son Grover, the future 
President, was born. 

The boy was named Stephen Grover Cleveland, but he 
took to calling himself Grover, without the Stephen, and 
everybody knows him as Grover Cleveland to-day. When 
he was four years old his father moved to Fayetteville, New 
York, and afterward to Clinton, in that State. At these places 
the boy went to school. He must have been a good scholar, 
for he got into the high school when he was several years 
younger than the other boys. And it was his ambition there 
to be at the head of his class. 

But a village clergyman in those days had very little to 
live on, and his boys had often to take hold and help. We 
are told that Grover went into a store near his home when he 
was only twelve years old and worked there for two years. 
Then he went back to his books again. When he was seven- 
teen he began to teach in a home for the blind in New York 
City. His older brother, who was a minister like his father, 
was teaching there and very likely got him the place. 

Grover did not like this place very much, and, like many 
other young people at that time, he took a notion to go West 
and see what chance there was there to make his way in the 
world. But he got only as far as Buffalo. An uncle of his 
lived near there, who had a farm and was writing a book of 
some kind, and he asked young Grover to stop and help him. 



2i6 GROVER CLEVELAND 

What the boy wanted to do was to study law, and after some 
time he got a chance to become a clerk and copyist in a law- 
yer's office in Buffalo, where he spent all his spare time in 
reading law books. 

He still lived with his uncle, whose place was two miles 
away, and every day, rain or shine, he walked those two 
miles back and forth. It was not much for a strong boy like 
him, and he had to live very cheaply, for he got only four 
dollars a week for his work. We are told that the first day 
he began to read a law book he kept at it till it was too dark 
to see the words. Then he found that everybody else had 
gone home and locked up the place, and he had to stay there 
all night. After that he kept one eye open for what was going 
on around him, if he had the other eye on his book. 

Grover Cleveland was a determined youth. He had 
that power of steady work and that resolute purpose which 
help men to make their way upward. When he was twenty- 
two years old he was admitted to the bar, but all the time he 
was trying to get some law practice he kept on working as a 
clerk for the lawyers in whose office he had studied. His 
father had died and he had to help his mother, who was left 
with very little money. 

The young lawyer was not long in getting work in his 
profession, and seems to have made headway pretty fast. In 
1863 he was made assistant district attorney for Erie County, 
and this must have brought him some good practice. 

In 1870 came his first lift upward. He was a Democrat 
in politics and the Democrats of Buffalo wanted a good, 
strong man to run for sheriff of the county. The story has 
been told that the selection of Cleveland for this office was 
largely due to chance. One of his law partners was asked to 
be a candidate for sheriff. He did not care to be, but told 



GROVER CLEVELAND 217 

his visitors that Mr. Cleveland would make a very good one. 
At any rate, whether that is true or not, Cleveland was 
, the man they picked out. He was elected and held the office 
, for three years, and made as good a sheriff as they could have 
found if they had tried every man in the county. When his 
time was up he went back quietly to his law office and began 
his old work again as if he were done with politics for the 
rest of his life. And he may have thought he was, for no 
one can see far into the future. 

It w^as in 1881, three years before he was nominated for 
President, that Grover Cleveland's remarkable career really 
began. The Democrats wanted a man for Mayor of Buffalo 
now, as they had wanted a man for sheriff eleven years before. 
Buffalo was a Republican city, and only a strong Democratic 
candidate had a chance to be elected. They remembered 
that Grover Cleveland had made a sheriff who pleased .the 
people, and had always tried to do the right and just thing, 
and thev selected him as their candidate. 

Cleveland did not brag or make a thousand promises. 
What he said was that if he was made mayor he would see 
that the business of the city was done in the same way that a 
good business man manages his private affairs. The people 
must have liked that kind of talk, for they elected him by the 
largest majority a Buffalo Mayor had ever received. 

No man ever kept his word more faithfully. The politi- 
cians, who had been handling their mayors with or without 
gloves, found that the new mayor was not to be handled. 
The Councils, which had been passing laws more for their 
own pockets than the public good, found their plans spoiled. 
Cleveland was called the "Veto Mayor." He vetoed bad 
bills by the dozens, and in a few months he saved the city 
nearly ^1,000,000. He was running the city on business 



2i8 GROVER CLEVELAND 

principles, as he had promised to do. The politicians would 
have got rid of him in a hurry if they could. No doubt they 
said many ugly things about him in private, but they were 
careful in public, for fear he might veto them, too. But the 
people looked on him as the best mayor they had ever known 
or heard of. 

Soon all over the State the voters were praising the 
" Veto Mayor," and when, the next year, the Democratic 
Convention met to select a candidate for Governor of New 
York, they thought they could not do better than to take up 
this very popular Mayor of Buffalo. And they were wise in 
doing so, for he beat the Republican candidate by nearly two 
hundred thousand votes. That was a great majority to gain 
on the basis of honesty in office. 

Governor Cleveland did for the State just what Mayor 
Cleveland had done for the city. He did not believe in forms 
and ceremonies. When he went to take the oath of office in 
Albany, he walked through the streets with a friend, instead 
of riding up in great state in a carriage. And all the time he 
was Governor he kept no carriage, but walked from his home 
to the State House. He went in for economy and honesty. 
He had promised "to serve the people faithfully and well," 
and he cut down political jobs as a farmer cuts down v/eeds. 
Honor in office was his watchword, and he made New York 
a poor place for rascals. 

The Democratic party saw that they had a very popular 
man for Governor of New York. He was being talked about 
all over the country. So in 1884, when they were in the field 
for a candidate for President, they picked out the Governor of 
New York as their strongest man. The party had not elected 
a President for twenty-four years, and they wanted the best 
man they could get. 



GROVER CLEVELAND 



219 



The contest was an ugly and bitter one. Everything 
unpleasant that newspaper editors could think of was said about 
the two candidates, Grover Cleveland and James G. Blaine. 
You might have thought they were both fit for the penitentiary. 
The election was a very close one. When all was over it was 
found that everything depended on the vote of New York 
State, and there the election was so close that it took a week 
or more to find who was the victor. Then it was found that 
Cleveland had a majority of a few hundred votes. 




MACHINERY HALL— CHICAGO EXPOSITION. 1893. 

When the new President came to take the oath of office 
he did not kiss the big Bible which other Presidents had used, 
but a little book, worn with use, which his mother had given 
him when he left home. That was a fine thing for him to do. 

As President he was the same kind of man he had always 
been. He did not now have to look out for political jobbers, 
but there were many laws passed which he did not like, and 
he vetoed every one which did not please him. It is said that 
in the first session of Congress after he became President he 



220 GROVER CLEVELAND 

vetoed one hundred and fifteen bills. Some of them were 
passed afterward, but he did what he thought his duty. 

The President was now forty-eight years of age. He was 
in the prime of life, a man of large, rather massive build, with 
a face of strength and intelligence, and a very simple and 
direct manner of speech. He was a very hard worker and 
examined every paper for himself, which no other President 
had thought of doing. He was not married, and his sister, 
Miss Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, a lady of literary tastes, 
became mistress of the White House. 

But in 1886 the President took for his wife Miss Frances 
Folsom, a charming and beautiful young lady, the daughter 
of his friend and partner in his old law office. He was the 
first President who married w^hile in office. They were mar- 
ried in the White House, and his attractive young wife became 
very popular. Her grace and sweetness of manner won her 
many friends and admirers. 

When the time for a new presidential election came 
round, in 1888, Mr. Cleveland was again nominated by the 
Democrats, while Benjamin Harrison was the Republican can- 
didate. This time the campaign was conducted with good 
temper, and there was none of the "mud slinging" of four 
years before. Neither party tried to win by calling the candi- 
date of the other party hard names. But the Republicans 
had come back to their strength again, and Harrison was 
elected with a good majority. 

The late President now made his home in New York 
City, and went into the law business there. But though he 
kept quiet and attended strictly to his business, he was not 
forgotten by his party, which still looked on him as its 
strongest man. So in 1892, after four years more had passed, 



GROVER CLEVELAND 221 

he was nominated again, while the RepubHcans chose Presi- 
dent Harrison once more for their candidate. This time there 
was another change. Cleveland was elected by a large major- 
ity. It looked as if the people had changed their minds or did 
not like the way things were going. He was the first Presi- 
dent who had come back to office after being away. 

The greatest event of President Cleveland's second term 
was the splendid World's Fair held at Chicago in 1893, one 
of the finest that had ever been seen in any country. During 
his term an important question came up about the South 
American country named Venezuela, which declared that 
England was robbing it of much of its land. This was against 
the " Monroe Doctrine," and the President said plainly that 
England must ^stop, or the United States would help Vene- 
zuela to make her stop. He did not use just those words, but 
that is what he meant. After a good deal of talk England 
concluded to have the matter settled by arbitration, which was 
what the President wanted. 

President Cleveland believed strongly in Civil Service 
Reform, and did all he could to help it on, and brought many 
of the offices under the Civil Service law. But he did not 
believe in bi-metalism ; that is, in having gold and silver both 
freely coined and made the standard of our money. He 
believed in a gold standard only. As he did not agree with 
this and other things in the platform of the Democratic party, 
he would not let his name be used as a candidate again. 

On March 4, 1897, when his term of office ended, he 
bought a mansion at Princeton, New Jersey, and made that 
city his home. Since then he has lived there quietly, taking 
much enjoyment in fishing, of which he was always very fond, 
and now and then speaking with much good sense and discre- 
tion on public and other subjects. 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 

THE TWENTY-THIRD PRESIDENT. 



THE ORATOR PRESIDENT. 

You have been told in an ear- 
lier story of the great part that was 
played by the Adams family in the 
history of the United States ; how 
two Presidents came from that 
family, and how it had two younger 
members of much note. We may 
say the same of the Harrison fam- 
ily. It also gave two Presidents to 
this country, while an older Harri- 
son had the high honor of signing 
the Declaration of Independence, 
and had other honors besides. 
He bore the same name as his great-grandson, who 
became President more than a hundred years afterward. If 
you examine the list of names of the men who signed the 
Declaration you will find among them the name of Benjamin 
Harrison. That is not all to be said about him. He was in 
the Continental Congress through the Revolution, and then 
became Governor of the great State of Virginia. And he was 
also one of the wise .men who made the Constitution of the 
United States. 

The Harrisons were from Virginia, the State which has 
been named the "Mother of Presidents." But William 




BENJAMIN HARRISON. 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 223 

Henry Harrison, who was born in that State, was an Ohio 
man when he was made President And his grandson Ben- 
jamin, who was born in Ohio, was a citizen of Indiana when 
he was chosen to fill that high office. 

The second Benjamin was born in his grandfather's 
homestead, at North Bend, Ohio. Here the boy's father, John 
Scott Harrison, Hved with his father, and here Benjamin was 
born on the 20th of August, 1833, over seven years before his 
famous grandfather was to be elected President 

The Harrison estate lay in the southwest corner of Ohio, 
between the Ohio and Miami Rivers. It was not a grand 
mansion in which little Benjamin grew up. It was a farmer's 
simple home, and the first school he went to was kept in a 
small log-cabin, not far from his father's house. I do not 
think many of you would have liked much to go to the school 
he studied in, for the children had to sit on seats, made of 
planks, with no backs, and so high that their feet could not 
touch the floor. Benjamin went there only in winter, for in 
summer he had to work on the farm. 

When he grew old enough Benjamin was sent to a school 
named Farmer's College, near Cincinnati. After he had been 
there two years he was sent to Miami University, in the town 
of Oxford, Ohio. He was a little fellow for a college boy at 
that time, and was much given to study, though he liked the 
college games as much as the other boys. He was only eigh- 
teen when he graduated, but he showed that he had been 
a good scholar by the honors of his graduation. 

The young graduate now had to start out in life for him- 
self His father was too poor to let his children lead an idle 
life. Benjamin made up his mind to be a lawyer, and entered 
a law-office in Cincinnati. He was bound to get to the place 
he started for if he had to work through sand and rocks. The 



224 BENJAMIN HARRISON 

boys and men who get to the top are the ones who do not 
stop for any hard places on the road. 

But he did one thing that looked a little bit hasty. He 
fell in love while a mere boy, and married when he was only 
twenty years old. His bride was Miss Caroline W. Scott, 
whose father was at the head of an academy near Miami Uni- 
versity. There the schoolboy had met and fallen in love with 
her. Very likely his parents thought their son had done a 
foolish thing to marry before he was ready to earn a penny. 

When the young student finished his studies he went to 
Indiana, where he hung up his sign as a lawyer in Indiana- 
polis, the capital of that State. All the money he had was 
a few hundred dollars, which an aunt had left him. He could 
not venture to rent a house with that, and hardly an office, and 
he had much trouble to live till business came. He knew no- 
body of importance in the city, and for several years he had 
very little practice and money was very scarce with him. In 
those days, as he has told us, ''a five dollar bill was an event." 

We are told that in one of his first law suits he had made 
a careful set of notes, to help him in pleading his case. But 
when he came to look at them he could not read them. The 
room was so dark that he could not make out a word. Here 
was a tight place for a young lawyer. He must have been 
very nervous and shaky, but he let the notes go and set in to 
do his best without them. And he did it so well that he won 
his case, and won the praise of the lawyers who heard him. 
He afterward became a very ready speaker, and this may have 
been the first time he found out what he could do. 

When the Civil War began Harrison was very busy at 
the bar, making money and reputation both. But when, in 
1862, the state of affairs began to look very gloomy for the 
North, he felt that it was his duty to set business aside and 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 225 

strike a blow for the safety of the Union. New regiments 
were forming and he set in to recruit and drill a company of 
soldiers. Other companies joined it, and it became the 
Seventieth Indiana Volunteers. He began as a lieutenant, 
but was made colonel of the new regiment. People did not 
forget that his grandfather had been a famous general, and 
they felt sure that he would make a good soldier. 

When the chance caii^e he showed them that they were 
right and that he was a good soldier. At the battle of Peach 
Tree Creek we hear his ringing shout, "Come on, boys! 
We've never been licked yet, and we won't begin now." 

His men were proud and fond of him. To them he was 
" Little Ben." No woman could have been kinder and more 
tender. After the battle of New Hope Church he went to the 
little frame house which had been made a hospital for his 
wounded men, and there threw off his coat, rolled up his 
sleeves, and set to work dressing their wounds in the dim 
candle light. For hour after hour he worked on gently and 
tenderly, till midnight came, and with it the surgeons. 

There is one more story of his kind thoughtfulness for 
his men. It was near the end of the war, when his regiment 
was in camp near Nashville. A night of terrible cold came 
on, with fierce snow and sleet. Ice covered the ground. 
Some of the men on picket duty froze stiff at their posts. 
Others were frost-bitten by the intense cold. Out from his 
warm quarters came Colonel Harrison into the bitter chill, 
carrying a can of hot coffee to the men on picket duty. " I 
was afraid the men would freeze," he said, "and I knew the 
hot coffee would keep them alive." 

He took part in other hard battles and fought well in 
them all. He was made brevet brigadier-general for his gal- 
lantry at the battle of Peach Tree Creek. When Sherman 

15 



226 BENJAMIN HARRISON 

marched through Georgia and up north, Harrison and his old 
regiment was with him. Only after Johnston surrendered 
and the war ended did General Harrison's service come to 
an end. When the lawyer-soldier got back to Indianapolis 
and to his law practice, he found that he had been elected 
Reporter of the Supreme Court. As time went on he entered 
actively into the political field, and when Grant was nominated 
for President in 1868, and again in 1872, Harrison worked 
like a beaver for him, making many speeches before large 
audiences. 

In 1876 his friends asked him to run for Governor of 
Indiana. He declared that he would not. But Hayes was 
on the ticket for President and the Republicans were very 
anxious to elect him. They were sure that Harrison's name 
would help him in Indiana, and insisted so strongly on his 
running that in the end he gave way. But after all they lost 
the State. The Democrats won and he was defeated. 

Our Indianapolis lawyer was now a prominent man in 
his party. His fine work as a soldier hade done him a great 
deal of good, and his telling oratory helped him very much. 
And they did not forget that he was the grandson of General 
Harrison, who had been President of the United States. So, 
in 1880, when the Republican Convention was having a great 
contest over the nomination for President, General Harrison's 
name was brought up. But he would not let it be used, and 
did his best to have Garfield nominated. 

When Garfield became President, he asked Harrison to 
accept a place in his cabinet. He had to decline, for he had 
just been elected to the United States Senate, and thought he 
would rather be Senator than cabinet officer. And a good 
Senator he made, too, and won great honor by his ability as 
a statesman and an orator. 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 227 

In 1884 there was again talk of nominating him for 
President, and in 1888 the Convention that met at Chicago 
selected him as its candidate for this office. His opponent 
was Grover Cleveland, who had just served one term as Presi- 
dent. Harrison defeated him, and w^as elected with 233 
electoral votes to 168 for Cleveland. There is one interesting 
point in Harrison's election. Just one hundred years before, 
Washington took his seat as President ; so he began the 
second century of the Presidency. The anniversary w^as cele- 
brated with great demonstrations of joy in New York, where 
the new President was one of the spectators. 

President Harrison's term of office was a quiet and pros- 
perous one. All went well w^ith the country ; business was 
active, the people w^ere happy, and the great national debt of 
the country was much reduced. One important event was 
the dedication of the great World's Fair at Chicago, in mem- 
ory of the discovery of America by Columbus four hundred 
years before. The President w^as there and opened the Fair 
with an excellent speech, on October 14, 1892. The Fair 
itself, as you may know, was not ready for the public till the 
next year, after Harrison's term as President w^as over. 

In 1892 Harrison and Cleveland were both nominated 
as Presidential candidates again. This time the Democrats 
won, Cleveland receiving 277 votes and Harrison 145 ; while 
Weaver, the Populist candidate, got 22 votes. 

When his term ended, on March 4, 1893, Harrison wxnt 
home to his law ofiice in Indianapolis. He w^as afterward 
appointed a lecturer on law in the great Leland Stanford Uni- 
versity of California. But he did not live very long afterward, 
for death came to him on March 13, 1901. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 



TWENTY-HFTH PRESIDENT. 



THE THIRD MARTYR PRESIDENT. 




i'^y-zp^ 



Is it not strange and sad that, 
within forty years, three of our Presi- 
dents have been killed by assassins? 
No other nation has met with such 
misfortunes. And it is sadder still 
when we think that these three were 
among the gentlest and kindest of 
them all. They were men who felt 
only good-will for everybody, yet, 
strange to say, these were the men 
whom the miserable murderers chose 
for their fatal bullets. You have read 
the story of two of them, Abraham 
Lincoln and James A. Garfield. The third was William 
McKinley, of whose life I am now about to speak. 

Everybody begins as a boy, and so we must begin with 
McKinley in his boyhood days. He was one of the kind of 
boys we like to read about. The stories of his life as a fisher, 
a skater, a blackberry picker, a playmate, and of the boy who 
had his boyish battles to fight and win, are such as to make 
every boy's and man's heart warm with memories of similar 
experiences. Niles, Ohio, was McKinley's birthplace. He 

was born there on the 29th of January, 1843. The house in 
228 



WILLIAM McKINLEY. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 229 

which he was born has recently been cut in two, and the sec- 
tion which includes the room of his birth has been moved a 
mile away, to a pretty spot known to the people of Niles as 
Riverside Park. 

It was a poor little two-story frame house, but was far 
better than the log-huts in which some of our Presidents were 
born. McKinley's parents were not rich, but they had enough 
to live on, and he had plenty of time for play and for school- 
life. He was a good student and a good boy. His pious 
mother read her Bible to him till he knew much of it by heart, 
and he joined the Methodist Church when he was fifteen years 
old. He was a member of this Church all the rest of his life. 

One Mould think he was born to be a fine public speaker 
by the way he argued and debated and spoke pieces in his 
school-boy days. He was always ready. At Poland, \vhere 
he lived when he got older, there was a literary society and 
debating club, and of it he was, for some time, president. The 
story is told that the boys and girls saved up their spending 
money until they had enough to buy a carpet for the meeting- 
room of the club. They purchased at a neighboring carpet 
store what they thought a very handsome one. Its ground- 
work was green, and it was ornamented with great golden 
wreaths. The society decided that no boots should ever soil 
that sacred carpet, and the girl members volunteered to knit 
slippers for all the members to wear. Unfortunately, the slippers 
were not ready for the first meeting, and so all the members 
who attended, and the visitors, too, were required to put oft' 
their shoes from their feet and listen to the debate shod only 
in stockings. The debaters did the same, and young McKin- 
ley presided over the meeting in his stocking feet. 

McKinley got a good education. He went to the com- 
mon school at Niles, to the academy at Poland, and to 



230 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 



Alleghany College at Meadville, in Pennsylvania. Here he 
soon got sick and had to go home ; and now he became a 
school-teacher himself, for his father had lost much of his 
money, and the boy had to help the family along. 

All this was before the great civil war began. When 
Fort Sumter was fired on, / 

and the people every- 
where were getting ready 
to fight, young McKinley' 
was just past his eight- 
eenth year. He was a 
short, slender, pale-faced 
boy, but he was full of 
fight, and away he 
marched to the war with 
the first company of Po- 
land volunteers. His 
regiment was the 23d 
Ohio Volunteers, whose 
major was Rutherford B. 
Hayes. You will remem- 
ber his name among our 
list of Presidents. ^Sothis 
regiment had one coming 
President among its offi- 
cers and one in its ranks. 
That was something to be proud of, if it had been known, for 
no other regiment ever had such good fortune. 

For fourteen months our young recruit carried a musket 
in the ranks. He was a good soldier, obeyed all orders, and 
was always pleasant to his comrades. And he had plenty of 
soldiering among the West Virginia mountains, where he 




LIEUTENANT WILLIAM McKINLEY. 
Shells exploding around, about and over him. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 231 

now soaked with rain, now half-starved from lack of food, and 
worn out with marching, fighting and going through all sorts 
of rough work. The Ohio boys were kept chasing the raiders 
through the rough hills, and they had a hard enough time. 

Let us get on with the boy soldier's story. He had been 
made a sergeant for his good work in West Virginia. He 
was made a lieutenant for his good work at the terrible battle 
of Antietam. This is how it came about. 

McKinley was commissary sergeant of his regiment. 
That is, he had charge of the food supplies. He did not 
have to fight ; but was two miles back from the fighting line. 
Most boys would have thought that a good place to stay, but 
the boy sergeant did not think so. He thought only of the 
poor fellows in the ranks, fighting all day under the burning 
sun. How parched and hungry they must be ! What would 
they not give for a cup of hot coffee ! 

As soon as he thought of this, he got hold of some of 
the stragglers in the rear and set them to making coffee. 
There were plenty of them, as there are in all battles. Then 
he filled two wagons with steaming cans of hot coffee and 
with food, and drove off with his mule teams for the line of 
battle. One of the wagons broke down, but the other kept 
on. He was ordered back, but nothing could stop him, and 
on to the lines he went at full speed. 

One of the officers says: "It was nearly dark when we 
heard tremendous cheering from the left of our regiment. As 
we had been having heavy fighting right up to this time, our 
division commander. General Scammon, sent me to find out 
the cause, which I very soon found to be cheers for McKinley 
and his hot coffee. You can readily imagine the rousing wel- 
come he received from both officers and men. When you 
consider the fact of his leaving his post of security and 



232 WILLIAM McKINLEY 

driving into the middle of a bloody battle with a team of 
mules, it needs no words of mine to show the character and 
determination of McKinley, a boy of, at this time, not twenty 
years of age." 

When the Governor of Ohio heard the story of McKin- 
ley and his hot coffee for the fighting boys, he made him a 
lieutenant. Don't you think he well deserved it? 

There are other stories of McKinley's gallant conduct. 
One of them comes from the time of the fighting in the Shen- 
andoah Valley, in July, 1864. Here the confederate General 
Early attacked General Crook and his men with so strong a 
force that Crook was driven back. General Hastings tells us 
how the young lieutenant in the face of death at the command 
of General Hayes, his commander, rode into the thick of the 
battle through a rain of shot and bursting shells, and brought 
out the regiment safely. This deed made a captain of the 
brave lieutenant. 

The fighting was over. The country was at peace. 
Everybody was getting back to work again. What would 
the young major do? He had his living to make. He had 
tried teaching and fighting, and now he thought he would 
like to be a lawyer, as he was so good a talker. So he 
entered a law office and began to study as hard as he had 
fought. In two years he was ready to practice, and hung out 
his sign in Canton, Ohio. This place was his home for the 
rest of his life, and here was he buried when he died. 

Here is the story of how he got his first case. One day, 
as he sat waiting for clients and thinking they would never 
come, Judge Glidden, who had been his law instructor, came 
into his office and said : " McKinley, here are the papers in a 
case of mine. It comes up to-morrow. I have got to go out 
of town, and I want you to take charge of it for me." 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 233 

McKinley declared that he could not do justice to the 
case at so short a notice. '* I never tried a single case yet, 
Judge," said he. 

''Well, begin on this one, then," was the Judge's reply. 
And it was finally settled that McKinley should do so. He 
sat up all night working on the case, tried it the next day, and 
won it. A few days later Judge Glidden entered his office 
and handed him ^25. McKinley did not wish to take it. 

"It is too much for one day's work," he said. 

*' Don't let that worry you," replied Glidden, good- 
naturedly. "I charged ^100 for this case, and I can well 
afford a quarter of it to you." 

He became a good public speaker and was in great de- 
mand. His first office was as district attorney of his county. 
In due time the rising lawyer got married and settled down as 
a family man. His wife was Miss Ida Saxton, a beautiful 
and intelligent girl, the daughter of a rich banker of Canton. 
McKinley loved her dearly, and never did two people pass 
happier lives together, for it was a case of true love all through. 
Mrs. McKinley was an invalid nearly all her life, and he was 
always kind and devoted to her. 

Major McKinley was elected to Congress in 1876, nine 
years after he began to practice law. General Hayes, who 
had been the first major of his old regiment, was now Presi- 
dent. He and McKinley were as warm friends now as when 
they had been in the army together. 

McKinley was fourteen years in Congress, and in every 
one of those years he made his mark in some way or other. 
In 1890 he was defeated in the election for Congress, 
but he was too well known and too much liked to stay 
defeated long. If the country did not want him the State did, 
and the next year he was elected Governor of Ohio by a good 



234 WILLIAM McKINLEY 

majority. In 1893 he was re-elected by over 80,000 votes. 
The soldier-boy was coming on well, wasn't he ? 

He made a good Governor, but he met with a sad mis- 
fortune through his kindness of heart. For he- put his name 
on the notes of an old friend, and when this man soon after 
failed in business McKinley found that he had been sadly 
cheated. He had signed for only ^15,000, but his seeming 
friend had made him liable for nearly -^100,000. 

This was like the story of Jefferson in his old days. 
Every cent he owned w^ould have gone if some friends had 
not raised the money to pay his debt, as Jefferson's friends did 
for him. McKinley said he would not take any money, but 
he could not help himself All the notes were paid as they 
came due and he never knew who paid them, so he could not 
return the money. In that way his kind friends got the better 
of him. 

And now came the time when the people of the whole 
country wanted McKinley. Ohio was not big enough to hold 
a man like him any longer. In 1896 a new President was to 
be chosen, and McKinley was the people's favorite and was 
elected by a very large number of votes. 

It was not a quiet chair to which President McKinley 
came. If you recall the lives of some of the other Presidents, 
you will find that they had no great troubles to meet. But 
McKinley had to face war and insurrection and all the difficult 
questions these brought on, and that was a good deal for a 
man who had grown to love peace and quiet. 

The map of your country will show you in the ocean just 
south of Florida, the long, narrow island of Cuba. It is so 
close to us that it really should have belonged to the United 
States, but Spain had owned it ever since it was discovered 
by Columbus, more than four hundred years before. 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 



235 



Spain had no right to own any island, for she did not 
know how to treat the people. The Cubans were treated so 
badly that they began to fight for liberty. Then the Spaniards 
treated them worse than ever, causing thousands of them to 
starve to death. That was more than Americans could stand. 
McKinley asked Spain to stop her cruelty. When she would 
not, the people of the United States so sympathized with the 
poor Cubans that armies and fleets were sent to fight the 
Spaniards in Cuba. President McKinley did not want war. 
He did all he could to keep it off. But when he found that 
Spain would not listen to reason there 
was nothing left to do but to teach the 
Spaniards a lesson. 

Only a few great battles were fought. 
Admiral Dewey won a great naval vic- 
tory in the Philippines and then there 
were battles in Cuba. You know how 
the war ended. Cuba was taken from 
Spain and made a free nation. Porto 
Rico, in the West Indies, and the Phil- 
ippine Islands, in the Pacific Ocean, were 
given over to this country. Then there 
came another war in the Philippines, an outbreak of the people, 
which lasted much longer than the war in Cuba. There was 
also a great rebellion in China, and the United States Minister 
at Peking, the capital of China, was in great danger from the 
rebels, and troops had to be sent to rescue him. 

All this made plenty of work for the President. He did 
not please everybody with what he did, but no one can do 
that. He dealt ably and wisely with all the questions that 
came up, and in 1900, when there was another Presidential 
election, he was more popular than ever. He was chosen by 




ADMIRAL GEORGE DEWEY. 



236 WILLIAM McKINLEY 

the whole Republican Convention, and was elected with the 
great majority of 137 electoral votes. 

It was a time of splendid prosperity during President 
McKinley's first term. Business was booming, commerce was 
active, thousands were growing rich, millions were living well 
and were happy and contented. That was one good reason 
for wanting him again. But the country was not to keep 
him long, for a dreadful event was close at hand, as I have 
now tp tell. 

The second inauguration of President McKinley took 
place on March 4, 1901. All looked promising. The war in 
the Philippines w^as nearly at an end, the country was grow- 
ing greater and grander, business was better than ever, 
nobody dreamed of a great coming tragedy. The President 
and his wife took a long journey that spring through the 
South and West, from Washington to San Francisco. The 
people of all the towns and cities turned out in multitudes to 
see and hear him. It was plain that he was a great public 
favorite. One would have thought he had not an enemy in 
the land. 

In September he went to Buffalo, in New York State, to 
see the great Fair that was being held there, in which the 
best and most beautiful things in America were being shown. 
Here, too, the people greeted him like a beloved friend. 
On the 6th, that he might meet them the more closely, a 
reception was held in the Temple of Music, where they would 
have an opportunity to shake hands with their President. 

Perhaps some of my readers may have been in Buffalo 
that day, visiting the Fair. Some of them may have been in 
the Temple of Music and have seen the long line of people 
taking the President's hand and looking into his kindly, smil- 
ing face. Some of them may even have heard the fatal sound 




ROOSEVELT AND HIS ROUGH RIDERS STORMING SAN JUAN HILL 

This was the most exciting incident, and the most destructive battle of the !=!panish War. The Rough Riders 
dismounted, boldly dashed up the hill, and assisted in driving the enemy from the forts. 




THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

Twenty-sixth President of the United States 



WILLIAM McKINLEY 237 

when a desperate villain fired a pistol at the President, and 
have seen the good man turn pale and fall back. ** Let no 
one hurt him," he gasped, as the guards rushed furiously at 
the murderer. 

After that there was a week of terrible anxiety in the 
country. Two bullets had struck the President, but for a time 
the doctors thought he would get well, and the people were 
full of hope. Then he suddenly began to sink, and on Friday, 
just one week from the time he was shot, death was very near. 
His wife was brought in and wept bitterly as she begged the 
doctors to save him. 

''Good bye, all; good bye," whispered the dying man. 
" It is God's way. His will be done." 

These were his last words. A few hours afterward he 
was dead. 

So passed away this great and noble-hearted man, the 
third of our martyred Presidents and one of the kindest and 
gentlest of them all. He was buried with all the ceremony 
and all the demonstrations of respect and affection the country 
could give. At the time his body was lowered into the grave, 
for five minutes the whole people came to rest, all business 
ceased, and a solemn silence overspread the land from sea to 
sea. Then the stir began again, and once more the world 
roared on. It never stops long for the greatest of men. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



THE TWENTY-SIXTH PRESIDENT. 



THE MAN OF A STRENUOUS LIFE. 

What do you think of the mis- 
erable men who go around trying 
to kill kings and presidents? Do 
you not think they are great fools 
as well as great villains ? I do. 
Why, as soon as they kill one king 
or president, another takes his place, 
and all goes on just the same as 
ever. So they do a great deal of 
harm and no good at all. 

It was that way when President 
McKinley was shot. All it did was 
to make a new president. Vice- 
President Roosevelt became President, and the country was 
not a minute without a head. And if Roosevelt had been 
killed there were half a dozen cabinet officers ready to take 
his place. So you see that shooting presidents is just a waste 
of powder and bullets. Nobody but a fool or an idiot would 
think of doing it. 

Now we are to talk about the new President, Theodore 
Roosevelt. He was a very different kind of a man from 
McKinley. He was not at all like any president we have ever 
had. He was a great worker, a great hunter, a great fighter, 

238 




THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 239 

but not a great politician. He was too honest and straight- 
forward for poHtics. He never said anything but just what he 
meant, and when he put his foot down whatever was under it 
was going to be hurt. There was no sHpping round corners 
with the new President. He ahvavs went straig^ht to the 
mark. That is not the way with poHticians. 

Theodore Roosevelt was a New York boy. He was born 
in that great city on October 27, 1858. He was not a poor 
boy. His parents were wealthy, and he could have all the 
good things that money can bring. But he was brought up 
in a very different way from many sons of the rich. He was 
taught at home to be active and industrious. He tells us 
himself: *'My father, all my people, held that no one had a 
right to merely cumber the earth ; that the most contemptible 
of created beings is the man who does nothing. I imbibed 
the idea that I must work hard, whether at making money or 
whatever. The whole family training taught me that I must 
be doing, must be working — and at decent work. I made my 
health what it is. I determined to be strong and well, and did 
everything to make myself so. By the time I entered Har- 
vard College I was able to take my part in whatever sports I 
liked. I wrestled and sparred and ran a great deal while in 
college, and, though I never came in first, I got more good 
out of the exercise than those who did, because I immensely 
enjoyed it and never injured myself" 

That is the kind of boy he was. He never hurt himself 
by trying to do too much, but did all that he had strength for. 
That is a thing it would be well for some college boys to 
remember. One who helps himself by running a mile, may 
hurt himself a great deal by trying to run two miles. 

When a little fellow Theodore was thin, pale and deli- 
cate. No one thought he would make much of a man — if he 



240 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



lived to be one. He was taught at home and in private 
schools, for his parents were afraid to tru.^t him to the rough 
play of the public schools. He did not like that. He wanted 
to be strong and to do what other boys did, and when he was 
old enough he began to do all he could to make himself 
strong. "I was deter- 
mined to make a man of 
myself," he says. 

There was not much 
he did not try. He 
learned to swim, he 
learned to row, he learned 
to ride. He climbed, he 
j u m p c d , he ran, he 
tramped over the hills. 
If any one asked him to 
ride, he said he would 
rather walk. If asked to 
take a sail, he said he 
would rather row. That 
is the way the delicate 
child grew to be a hardy 
boy and a man with mus- 
cles like steel. He 
showed what nearly any 
weak boy might do, if he 
chose to take the trouble. 

He was always fond of stories of animals and adventure. 
When he was only six years old he used to tell such stones 
to his little brother and sisters. All his animals talked and 
acted like boys or men, and his men were as strong as giants. 

When he got older he did not let anybody impose on 




THEODORE ROOSEVELT IN HIS 
HUNTING COSTUME. 




tf 




THEODORE ROOSEVELT 241 

him. One day, when he was only a little fellow and went to 
a private school, he set out with his chum in a fine new sailor 
suit. Some of the public-school boys got in his way and 
called him a "dude." But they did not stay long, for Teddy 
and his chum went at them with their fists and fought their 
way through. Every day for a week it was the same thing. 
One day, after a hard battle, Teddy said to his chum: ''Let's 
go round the block and come back and fight them again." 
He seemed to like fighting as much as he did later on. 

He was always ready to fight for his rights. One day he 
came home from school with his clothes covered with mud 
and his face and hands scratched and bleeding. 

"What is the matter, Teddy?" asked his father. 

"Why, a boy up the street made a face at me and said, 
'Your father's a fakir.' He was a good deal bigger than me, 
but I wouldn't stand that ; so I just pitched in. I had a pretty 
hard time, but I licked him." 

"That's right; I'm glad you licked him," said his father. 
You may see that old Roosevelt was a good deal like young 
Roosevelt. 

When he was old enough the boy was sent to Harvard 
University. He studied well and graduated in 1880, and then 
spent a year in Europe. When he came to Switzerland and 
saw the Alps, the first thought he had was to climb them. He 
did it, too ; he went to the top of the Matterhorn and the 
Jungfrau, two of the hard ones to climb. 

When he came home in 1881 he was twenty-three years 
old. Nobody would have thought that this young fellow, with 
his strong frame, stout shoulders, and square jaws, had ever 
been delicate. He had fought his way to health and strength. 
He had plenty of money, and he might have spent the rest 
of his life in having a good, easy, lazy sort of time, but that 



242 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

was not Teddy Roosevelt's way. He was already at work, 
writing a book. It is called "The Naval War of 1812," and 
a good book it is, too. It shows that he was then a thinker, 
and that he had read a great deal about the wars of the world. 

That was only home work. Out of doors he at once 
went in for politics. And he did it so well that he was 
quickly elected to the New York Legislature. He took his 
seat there in 1882, the youngest member in the House. 
Many of the old members looked on him with scorn and 
called him "silk stocking." They thought he was a rich 
man's son who had come there to play at politics. They did 
not dream what he meant to do. He went at their little games, 
" hammer and tongs." In two months' time he had all the 
reformers on his side, and was going for the political tricksters 
as he had gone for the school-boys. He stayed six years 
in the Legislature, and in that time he carried through a 
number of very useful bills. 

This is only one side of Theodore Roosevelt's life. I 
have told you that he was fond of stories of animals and wild 
life from the time he was six years old. When he grew older 
he read all the books he could get on the subject of hunting 
and natural history, and was very fond of Cooper's novels of 
Indian life. And when he reached manhood he became a 
hunter himself, going every year to the "Wild West," where 
he had splendid times in hunting the big game of that region. 
There were no lions and tigers to hunt, but there were bears 
and catamounts, and they were bad enough. 

After he left the Legislature he was several years out of 
office, and these he spent in the West, hunting, fishing, ranch- 
ing, and doing all sorts of rough work. He started a cattle 
ranch of his own, and put up a rough log building on which 
he worked himself It was so far in the wilderness that he 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 243 

shot a deer from his own front door. Here he had herds of 
cattle, and acted as cowboy as w^ell as hunter. He would 
dress in a flannel shirt and overalls tucked into alligator boots, 
and would help his own cowboys in rounding up the cattle, 
riding with the best of them. Then he would go home to 
sleep in bear-skins and buffalo robes, whose old wearers had 
fallen under his own rifle. 

Mr. Roosevelt has always been very short-sighted and 
has had to wear glasses. They called him "Four Eyes" in 
the West, and looked on him as a "tenderfoot" — that is, a 
man from the East who knows nothing of Western life. 

One day, when it was snowing and he had been out look- 
ing for lost cattle, he stopped at the hotel of a village in 
North Dakota. Here there was a "bad man" who wanted 
some one to fight with. He settled on Roosevelt. 

" Here, you, take a drink," he said roughly. 

" No, thank you. I don't want to drink," said Roose- 
velt,, smiling. 

"You've got to drink." 

"I guess not," said Roosevelt, with another smile. 

"I say you have." And the "bad man" pulled his 
pistol. 

In a second he thought a sky-rocket had struck him, but 
it was Teddy Roosevelt's fist, which knocked him sprawling. 

"Where was I shot?" he asked, when he came to. 

It took a good hour to make him believe that he had 
been shot by a " tenderfoot's " fist. After that the wild folks 
had too much respect for " Four Eyes " to meddle with him. 

But he had a quarrel with one of his neighbors. There 
was a Frenchman, the Marquis de Mores, who owned a ranch 
next to his, and a quarrel broke out between the cowboys of 
the two ranches. Roosevelt heard the story and backed up 



244 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

his own cowboys, for he thought they were right. This made 
the Marquis very angry, and he said some ugly things about 
his neighbor, adding that he would shoot him the next time 
he met him. As soon as Roosevelt heard of this, he sprang 
on his horse and rode off at full speed to the Marquis's house. 
He strode in to where the Frenchman was sitting. 

" I understand you said you would shoot me the next 
time you saw me," said the visitor. *' Here I am, you can 
have the chance now." 

The Marquis didn'.t shoot. In fact, after a talk over the 
quarrel, the two became very good friends. 

'' I am not so fond of 'bronco busting' and riding wild 
horses as some people think," said Roosevelt, in later days. 
" It wasn't because I liked that kind of work that I did it. 
But I always took just what came, and if it happened to be 
the wildest animal in the bunch, I got on, and stayed on, too, 
for when I got on I made up my mind to stay, and I have 
yet to see the bronco that could make me give in." 

Now let us go back to his political life. In April, 1897, 
Roosevelt became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He liked 
the position, for it began to look very much like war with 
Spain, and he saw that there was plenty of work to do. 
That always suited him — plenty of work. 

He jumped into it. The ships wanted fitting up. The 
gunners needed to be taught how to aim and fire. He made 
things boom. He asked for J8oo,ooo for ammunition. It 
was given to him, and a few months later he asked for 
$500,000 more. "What have you done with the $800,000 ?" 
he was asked. ** Spent every cent of it for powder and shot 
and fired it all away." " And what are you going to do with 
the $500,000?" "Use it the same way, to teach the men 
how to shoot'* 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 245 

In less than a year after that the men showed the good 
of Roosevelt's work, by their splendid aiming and firing in 
the battles of Manila Bay and off Santiago coast. 

But w^hen war actually came, in May, 1898, wild horses 
could not have kept Roosevelt at office work. He offered his 
resignation at once and asked to be appointed on General 
Lee's staff Then came the idea of the " Rough Riders' " 
Regiment — to be made up of cowboys, whom no horse could 
throw, and of daring riders from any quarter. " Roosevelt's 
Rough Riders " they were called, and the title hit the popular 
fancy. The papers were full of it. 

No doubt, you know something of how he fought in 
Cuba, at Las Guasimas and in the terrible charge up San Juan 
Hill, in the face of the Spanish works. He was a fighter, 
out and out. He did not know what it was to be afraid. 
*' You'd give a lifetime to see that man leading a charge or 
hear him yell," said one of his soldiers. "Talk about cour- 
age and grit and all that — he's got it." This is what a 
reporter says of the charge up San Juan Hill : 

" Roosevelt was a hundred feet ahead of his troops, yell- 
ing like a Sioux, while his own men and the colored cavalry 
cheered him as they charged up the hill. There was no stop- 
ping as men's neighbors fell, but on they went, faster and 
faster. Suddenly, Roosevelt's horse stopped, pawed the air 
for a moment, and fell in a heap. Before the horse was down 
Roosevelt disengaged himself from the saddle and, landing 
on his feet, again yelled to his men, and, sword in hand, 
charged on afoot." 

Colonel Roosevelt was the popular hero of the war. 
Everybody was talking of him, his boldness, his free and easy 
ways, his kindness to his men, his genial manner. When he 
got back to the United States, he found that men were talking 



246 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

of making him the next Governor of New York. They did, 
too. He went on the stump himself and made many speeches. 
On the night after the election he went to bed, not waiting for 
the returns, and was roused up about two o'clock in the morn- 
ing by men knocking hard on the front door. 

He came to the door with sleepy eyes. 

"What is the matter?" he asked. 

"You're elected by eighteen thousand." 

"Am I ? That's bully. Come in and tell me about it." 

But after a few minutes he bade them good night, saying 
that he was so sleepy that he must go to bed again. 

We need not say that Governor Roosevelt did his work 
as well in the capitol as he had done in the legislature. 
"Jobs" could not get past him. He put his foot down heavy 
on all sorts of rascality. He did not stay long in Albany, for 
he was soon wanted at Washington. When the Republican 
convention to nominate a candidate for President was held in 
1900, McKinley was the man wanted. But for Vice-President 
Roosevelt's was the most popular name. 

He did not want the office. He was coaxed to accept, 
and was fairly forced into it. He made a campaign of the 
country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, speaking for McKin- 
ley. Of course, McKinley won — he was bound to win^and 
Roosevelt won with him. This was in November, 1900. In 
September, 1901, the President was shot, and there came a 
great change in Roosevelt's career. On Friday morning, Sep- 
tember 13th, being told that the wounded President was out 
of danger, he left the hotel in the Adirondacks, where he was 
staying, for a long tramp in the mountains. Then came news 
that the President was dying and the Vice-President was 
wanted. It took hours to find him. It was nearly night when 
the guides and hunters came up to him, many miles away. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 247 

He was filled with surprise and grief when he was told 
the news. All that night he rode in a stagecoach to the 
nearest railroad station. When he got there he was startled 
to learn that McKinley had died three hours before and that 
he himself was now President of the United States. He had 
jumped from a do-nothing to a do-everything. 

No man ever liked better to go where he pleased and do 
what he pleased. It was felt necessary to keep guards and 
detectives near him, for fear some wretch might try to kill 
him as they had done McKinley; He hated this. He was 
afraid of nothing, and thought he could take care of himself, 
and the poor guards had a hard time keeping him in sight. 
Sometimes he would give them the slip and ride away without 
their knowing it. Then he was happy. 

His first message to Congress, in December, 1901, was 
a great state paper, which gave everybody satisfaction. After 
reading it, people all over the country said, " Roosevelt is a 
safe man. We can trust the country to him." 

And that feeling has not died away yet, for he soon 
showed he meant to do all he had promised, and in his first 
term of office he proved himself a hard worker, an able 
statesman, and a man of the strictest integrity. When the 
great coal strike took place in 1902 and people were afraid 
of freezing in the wintry chill, President Roosevelt did what 
no President had ever done before. He took a hand in the 
settlement of the strike and soon had the men at work again. 

There were many who said this was wrong, that it was 
unconstitutional, and all that ; but the President only smiled. 
He felt satisfied he had done right, and most of the people said 
the same. In the spring of 1902 he went to Charleston, South 
Carolina, to see the great exposition there. He was very 
well received by the people of the South, and made a number 



248 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

of Speeches with which they were greatly pleased. During the 
next spring he made a great journey all over the country, giv- 
ing fine speeches everywhere, and telling the people just what 
he thought on a hundred subjects. Crowds came to see and 
hear him, he was wildly greeted and cheered, but through it 
all he was the same simple, plain Theodore Roosevelt. When 
a crippled boy was brought to see him, he leaned down and 
took his hand and spoke kindly words to him. When a little 
child offered him some flowers, he lifted her up and kissed her. 
And this was not done for show, but was the earnest feeling 
of a great, warm heart. 

President Roosevelt's home is near Oyster Bay, Long 
Island, New York. The house is full of trophies of his many 
hunting trips. It is situated on Cove Neck, three miles by 
carriage from the village of Oyster Bay. It is approached by 
a steep, winding roadway, which takes the visitor through a 
dense wood before revealing to him the house itself Once 
on the crest of the little hill which he has selected for his 
home, the visitor has a beautiful view in every direction, espe- 
cially to the north and east, where the waters of the Sound 
and Cold Spring Harbor are seen. Around the house on all 
sides is a closely cropped lawn, studded with shade trees, big 
and little, and of many kinds. 

Mrs. Roosevelt, " the lady of the White House," is rather 
small, has brown hair and eyes and a clear complexion, but 
her chief beauty is her mouth, which is highly expressive. 
She is one of the women who have the art of making them- 
selves popular, and is very well fitted for her high position, to 
which she does honor on every public occasion. I have no 
doubt she is very proud of her husband, and so are the people 
of the United States, whatever party they belong to. 

N. B. Adding sixteen to the last page number for the fuUpage half-tone pictures not numbered, will give 264 as 
number of pages in this book. V^ M M ^ >^|HH| IHft 



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